A final reminder before drying off about the bulk milk fluke and worm test.

This is a cost-effective option to test your herd’s exposure to parasites through a bulk milk test. The test measures the levels of antibodies in your sample to both fluke and worms. It can detect an increase in antibodies from as early as 3 weeks after infection and is highly accurate (98%).

The test results will give you an indication of the percentage of animals exposed to fluke and the worm burden of the herd. Knowing your herd’s status can save the cost of unnecessary drenching when parasites are not a problem. It can also highlight a high fluke or worm burden before significant production losses and clinical signs are seen and thus allowing you to pick the most appropriate drench to use.

We seem to have more reliable results when the farmer (or passing vet) collects the sample. It is important to discard the first 2 litres from the vat as it is dead space and not representative, giving inaccurate results.