Testing for liver fluke can save time... and money

Sheep farmers can save both time and money by testing before they treat their stock for liver fluke this autumn, experts have advised.

According to the industry advisory body, Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep (SCOPS) the current year has highlighted that there is no typical year for fluke – and warned that the very dry spring in some regions followed by a wet summer meant that the timing of peak fluke risk this year could be different from normal and different across the country.

“Reports of cases of fluke have started to come in from some regions, however these are variable, highlighting the unpredictability of fluke this year,” said the organisation.

But as well as ensuring better targeting of treatments, testing first could also save farmers money.

“It is tempting to treat animals for fluke early in the autumn, but this may be a waste of time and money and offers no pro - tection against disease if animals become infected later in the YEAR. SCOPS experts suggest you use this season’s lambs as sentinels and test them using a blood test before considering treatment of the main flock.”

They warned producers to remember that fluke treatments had little persist ency and therefore would not protect animals against re-infection if they remained on flukey pastures: “Drug meat and milk withdrawal periods are not the same as persistence.”

The organisation also warned that each farm is different and monitoring the situation on an individual farm could help lead to big savings – a claim which was backed up by one Scottish farmer who said: “It is of great benefit to have a screen of your stock to predict fluke infection.

It means also you are not over treating and risking the effect of resistance.

“There is a saving in cost of drugs required and labour input and gathering could be a day and a half with three men – around £372.

South of the Border, Pete Webster who farms near Windemere said: “On our high-fluke-risk farm in the Lake District, we are bloodtesting sentinel lambs that we have kept in with our ewes to identify the b est time to first treat the ewe flock this back-end.

“If the first lamb tests are negative, we will retest in a month to check again.”

Professor Di an aWilli am soft he University of Liverpool said that farmers were increasingly using blood test son lambs to check for infection in their sheep .“This is the best diagnostic test at this time of year,” she said. “The test can detect infection much earlier than faecal methods, which rely on the liver flukes being more mature. Lambs are ideal as an early warning because they can only have picked up liver fluke this season.”

“Lambs are ideal as an early warning because they can only have picked up liver fluke this season”

DIANA WILLIAMS