Responsible drenching is becoming widely talked about. As an industry we need to shift towards only drenching calves when they need it. This saves on money (less product used) and time (fewer hours spent herding, yarding and administering treatment). But, most importantly, it also helps slow parasites developing resistance to the drenches we use.
As you make plans for drenching your calves this season, consider FEC (faecal egg count) testing. This determines the number of internal parasite eggs in a poo sample. Generally speaking, calves can cope with up to 200 eggs per gram without much impact on health and weight gain.
Take some faecal samples from your calves before you drench them and get them tested through us. It's quick and simple, and depending on results, you may be able push out drenching by a week. This might not sound like a big difference, but going from a 4-week drenching period to a 5-week drenching period for the season could save you 1-2 doses of drench per calf (so a bottle of drench for an average-sized mob). The aim is to reduce the amount of drench used to the minimum amount needed without impacting calf health or welfare.
We can do individual tests on separate samples to identify each calf's values, or we can do a composite test where you collect several samples from different calves into one pottle to get an average for the group – whatever works best for you.
Another option is a drench reduction test, which tests the efficiency of the drench product that you’re currently using. For this you take samples before you drench your calves to get a benchmark of where they're at. Then 10-14 days following drenching you take more samples to compare results. Ideally we'd want to see a big reduction in the egg counts.
Interestingly, if the eggs are reduced by any less than 95% the worms are technically classed as resistant. This might mean that you visually see an improvement in the condition of your calves, because if they’ve lost 94% of their parasite burden they will improve, but the worms on your farm are still considered a resistant to the drench. Early recognition allows you to take action and slow resistance build-up on your property.
So, collect some faecal samples from your stock! Pop into clinic to pick up clean sample pottles, ask us to bring some out next time we're visiting your farm, or use ziplock bags.
Individual samples require around 10g (two tablespoons or a small yoghurt pot) of fresh poo taken from different calves and kept separate. Composite samples require at least a tablespoon amount of fresh poo per calf taken from 10 calves and mixed together.
