This winter may have been closer to a “normal” winter in the Awatere Valley, but Bruce Hamilton knows soon enough the perennial headache of flystrike will raise its ugly head as warmer weather arrives.
Bruce has been managing Glenlee Station on the northern side of the Awatere River for the past four years but has spent far longer in the district and has tracked a few shifts in the district’s weather patterns over time.
“We are seeing much more intense rainfall events with summer humidity, other than this year, being higher, bringing on the problems you would expect with flystrike over a lengthy warm weather period.”
Despite that trend, the past late summer period had a relatively low humidity level, with an exceptionally dry autumn meaning weaning was pushed out some weeks past its usual date.
He runs 5000 stock units comprising largely Merinos and some Angus cattle on the 10,000 hectare station, and tight economic conditions means managing the big block as economically as possible is more critical than ever this year.
In assessing his flystrike treatment choices, Bruce has opted for Zoetis’s StrikeForce®-S spray on as a ready to use treatment. Having flexibility on when to spray, is a critical requirement for him, as well as aligning treatment with yarding for weaning and other treatments. He will typically apply StrikeForce-S at tailing time.
“Then if you can get through to the trigger point in autumn where you can make the call to apply a second treatment, StrikeForce-S’s lengthy prevention period means for the past couple of years we have enjoyed the flexibility of making that call.
“This year we weaned later on account of the lower feed levels, and the high-risk period wasn’t the same as other seasons, thus we could get away with not treating them a second time.”
He also treats the ewes, at tailing.
“Hoggets are also done off-shear, and we have found that StrikeForce-S holds really well. And in the last season, we had no flystrike from tailing through to weaning.”
Rams also come in for some spot treatment, run up the race for a quick spray on their head where they may have been banging horns together.
The treatment has been fully integrated into his animal health plan and plays a key role in preventing flystrike over the summer months.
A cost evaluation with comparative treatments has StrikeForce-S come out on top. He finds its easy to apply formulation is enhanced by its highly visible colour, ensuring accurate application in the pen.
“Normally we can get away with one treatment for the lambs at tailing, which provides great value for money, but if we do have to give another treatment, we have confidence the lambs are protected through to the end of the fly season”.
The perennial threat of flystrike is not going away any time soon at Glenlee station, and Bruce can recount some dire encounters with it in the past before integrating StrikeForce-S into his animal health routine.
“Historically, flystrike’s been a real headache. I can remember always keeping a tin of Maggo handy, a pretty tough treatment to have to use on the sheep. We would also often get the sheep in every six weeks to spray with historical treatment methods, which was time consuming. And if you had a rain event afterwards it meant it had been a waste of time.”
That contrasts with StrikeForce-S which he finds remains relatively unaffected by rainfall events post-treatment.
“The main thing is to just be aware of when the treatment period is coming towards its end, and making a timely decision about re-application if required. Eighteen weeks is a good length of protection to have.”
For Bruce the freedom from having to set up and run jetters for treatment is invaluable, and underscores StrikeForce-S’s flexibility for rapid application.
“And it is also just having that peace of mind, knowing you have taken the right steps applying it when you have.”
More: This article was made possible by Zoetis New Zealand Limited. Tel: 0800 963 847, www.zoetis.co.nz. StrikeForce-S is a registered trade mark of Zoetis. ACVM No. A11349. All other trade marks reference are trade marks of their respective owners.
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