Facial Eczema (FE). Farmer Information. Part 3. (Dairy Cattle). Management.

Agriculture, farming, animal husbandry, animal heath, disease, Facial Eczema, Dairy cattle, management, advice, recommendations

By Dr Clive Dalton

Original 1991 information written by Dr Barry Smith and Dr Neale Towers, Ruakura Agricultural Research Station, Hamilton, New Zealand.

 
3. (Dairy Cattle). Management.

• Make early preparations - in December or early January.
•  Learn about spore counting - contact your veterinarian.
• Find out which are your worst paddocks (by spore counting) and avoid grazing them during danger periods.
• Never make stock graze into the base level of pastures. The fungus grows on the litter at the base of the pasture and the spores are concentrated there.
• Choose a prevention option from one of the following three:
•  (1). Spray pasture with fungicide. Check that spray unit is properly calibrated and purchase fungicide early.
• (2). Use a suitable zinc prevention method. If you have a suitable water reticulation system, add zinc sulphate. Otherwise dose with zinc oxide or spray zinc oxide on to pasture.
• (3). Provide supplementary feed (crops, fodder, hay or silage). Use to reduce grazing pressure on toxic pasture.
• Have a concentrated calving and calve early so that you have at least 80% of annual production in the six months to the end of January.
• Get rid of all surplus stock early before spore counts become high. This allows you to reduce grazing pressure for remaining stock. If things get worse dry off the herd.  This will immediately cut pressure on feed by half. It will also cut your income so it's an important decision.
• If replacement heifers are grazed off the farm make sure that the manager is taking adequate measures to protect them against FE.
• Care for affected stock by one of the following options:
• (1). Dry off milking cows.
• (2). Confine in shaded area, barn etc.
•  (3).Treat infected skin lesions.
• (4). Provide access to water and quality feed. Cattle with clinical FE will prefer to graze at night or in overcast conditions.

Disclaimer

This material is provided in good faith for information purposes only, and the authors do not accept any liability to any person for actions taken as a result of the information or advice (or the use of such information or advice) provided in these pages.

Facial Eczema (FE). Part 5. Farm Information.(Dairy Cattle). Zinc oxide. Long-term dosing.

Agriculture, Farming, animal husbandry, animal health, disease, Facial Eczema, advice on prevention, recommendations, zinc, zinc oxide, long-term dosing, recipes.

By Dr Clive Dalton

Original 1991 information written by Dr Barry Smith and Dr Neale Towers, Ruakura Agricultural Research Station, Hamilton, New Zealand.

5. Facial Eczema: (Dairy Cattle). Zinc oxide. Long-term dosing.

• Milking cattle are best dosed daily, this gives best protection and, once the cows are trained, causes less disruption in the shed.
• Milking cattle can be protected by dosing at 2 or 3 day intervals. Do not dose at greater than 3-day intervals as the high zinc doses will cause milk fever in a small proportion of the cows.
• Dry cattle can be dosed twice weekly, or at weekly or fortnightly intervals.
• Dose rates need to be increased to account for less efficient protection and the length of interval between doses if not dosed daily.
• Zinc oxide dosing can be expected to markedly reduce, but not totally prevent, FE outbreaks.
• Daily dosing should reduce the number of animals affected and the severity of the damage to the livers of affected animals by 80-90%.
• Twice-weekly (lactating) and weekly dosing (dry stock) by 70-80%.
• A more stable and concentrated drench can be made by including either a commercial stabiliser such as CoZinc (Coast Biologicals Ltd) or Maximix (Bell-Booth Ltd), or a liquid "farm" strength seaweed fertiliser such as Maxicrop (Bell-Booth Ltd), Green Label Response (Coast Biologicals Ltd) or Sea Magic (Yates Ltd).

Remember: Not all liquid fertilisers are seaweed based.

• Stabilisers have two advantages:
• (1). They increase the ease of mixing and drenching.
• (2). They allow the mixing of more concentrated drenches and therefore use of smaller drench volumes.
• Make sure you use the right dose rate for the type of drench mixed.

Note: Proprietary mixes such as Cozinc (Coast Biologicals Ltd), Maximix (Bell-Booth Ltd) and Nu Zinc (Nufarm Ltd) should be mixed and used as recommended on the product label.

Recipes
Unstabilised drench

• Mix 1 kg zinc oxide with 2.5 litres of water.
• Sprinkle powder on water and leave to wet.
• Stir until smooth and lump free.
• If too stiff to flow through drench gun, add a little more water.
• If too thin to stay in suspension, stir in a little more zinc oxide powder.
• This produces about 2.7 litres of drench.

• Daily dosing: 7 ml/100 kg liveweight.
• 3-day, weekly: 10 ml/100 kg liveweight x No. of days between drenches

Stabilised drench

• Mix 1 kg zinc oxide powder with 1 litre of water and 200 ml of "stabiliser".
• Mix the stabiliser and water first.
• Sprinkle powder on the water and let settle and wet.
• Stir to a smooth creamy paste.

• Daily dosing: 3.6 ml/100 kg liveweight.
• 3-day-weekly: 5ml/100 kg liveweight x No. of days between drenches.

Disclaimer
This material is provided in good faith for information purposes only, and the author does not accept any liability to any person for actions taken as a result of the information or advice (or the use of such information or advice) provided in these pages.

Facial Eczema (FE). Farmer Information. Part 7. Zinc Oxide. Motor-driven Drenching Systems

Agriculture, farming, animal husbandry, animal health, disease, Facial Eczema, advice, recommendations, zinc, zinc oxide, motor driven drenching systems, methods

By Dr Clive Dalton

Original 1991 information written by Dr Barry Smith and Dr Neale Towers, Ruakura Agricultural Research Station, Hamilton, New Zealand.

 Part 7. Facial Eczema. Zinc Oxide. Motor-driven drenching systems

 Some motor-driven drenching systems cannot be adjusted to the recommended dose volumes. Therefore the drench mixture must be adjusted so that the correct amount of zinc oxide is given.


Method
-
Establish the drench volume/cow.

• Deliver a set number of shots into a measuring jug.
• Record the total volume.
• Divide the total volume by the number of shots to get the shot volume.
• e.g. 10 shots equals 550 ml
• Shot volume = 550 +- 10 = 55 ml
• Repeat at least once to confirm the result.
  

Determine the correct zinc oxide dose per cow from the table below.

Note. These rates give the same zinc dose as the other zinc drenches.
These rates are higher than recommended in AgLink FPP 496.

• Subtract 3 ml from drench shot volume to compensate for the volume of the zinc oxide, e.g. 55 ml - 3 = 52 ml.
•  Multiply volume and the zinc oxide dose rate by the number of cows, e.g. 100 cows x (10 g zinc oxide + 52 ml water) = 1 kg zinc oxide + 5.2 litres water (1 kg + 5 litres rounded off).
• Multiply the daily mix by the number of days, e.g. for 20 days = 20 kg zinc oxide + 100 litres water.
• Most farmers would prepare a bulk mix of a 20 kg bag of zinc oxide.
  

Note: In mid-season, check your zinc supplies and your arithmetic to make sure you
have not been overdosing.

• e.g. 100 cows (J x F) @ 10 g/day for 50 days = 100 x 10 g x 50 days = 50 000 g (50 kg).
•  Have you used more or less than 50 kg zinc oxide so far?
  

Disclaimer
This material is provided in good faith for information purposes only, and the author does not accept any liability to any person for actions taken as a result of the information or advice (or the use of such information or advice) provided in these pages.

Facial Eczema (FE). Farmer Information. Part 15. (Sheep & beef cattle). Grazing management.

Agriculture, farming, animal husbandry, animal health, disease, Facial Eczema, zinc, sheep and beef cattle, grazing management, advice, recommendations

By Dr Clive Dalton

Original 1991 information written by Dr Barry Smith and Dr Neale Towers, Ruakura Agricultural Research Station, Hamilton, New Zealand.

15. Facial Eczema: (Sheep and beef cattle). Grazing management.

• Planned grazing can substantially reduce the risks of FE in hill country. Good planning is essential and it must start months in advance.
•  Identify the safe areas on your farm and aim to have a feed bank on these areas for the FE season.
• Learn about spore counting - contact your veterinarian.
• The best way to identify the safer areas on your farm is by regular spore counting over several years - but in the meantime the shady south facing faces are generally safest.
• Spore counts on easy rolling paddocks and those facing north are generally higher than those on southern faces.
• Fence the safer areas separately so that grazing of these areas can be controlled.
  

Safer Pastures

• Spore counts are generally lowest on hillsides of low fertility grasses like browntop, sweet vernal, Yorkshire fog and danthonia. Summer growing grasses like kikuyu or paspalum are also safer.
•  Slopes exposed to prevailing drying winds also tend to have lower spore counts -but remember that a change in wind flows may result in normally safe paddocks becoming dangerous and visa versa.
• Pastures that have been allowed to become rank during Nov-Jan and have a lot of standing dead leaf and grass stems also tend to have low spore counts. These pastures may not look good but have a value of their own in a FE season.
• Ryegrass-white clover dominant pastures are the most dangerous especially if they have been burnt off in a dry summer followed by light rains during a humid autumn.
  

Safer Grazing

• Avoid hard grazing.
•  The spores are concentrated in the litter at the base of the pasture so the harder the sheep graze the greater the risk of FE.
• Light grazing will require good early planning or you will quickly run out of paddocks. 

• Aim to:
•  (1). Maximise feed available on safer areas of the farm.
• (2). Minimise stock numbers.
• Spread animals widely if set stocked or use a fast rotation leaving a high residual pasture mass.
• Do not try to retain young stock into late summer and autumn just to reach higher carcass weights.
• Aim for an early, compact lambing so that you get an early weaning and the maximum number away at good weights before the FE season.
• MAF trials showed that keeping lambs until March increased the grazing pressures on the breeding ewes and made the subsequent FE outbreak much worse. 
• More ewes died and those that survived produced fewer lambs the following spring.  The losses far outweighed the added return from the six weeks' extra lamb growth.
• Cull other stock early.
• Consider using hay, silage or crops early rather than heavily graze pastures.  The spores in the autumn saved pasture will lose toxicity with time.
  

Summing Up

• Identify and fence the safer areas of your farm.
•  Build up a feed bank on these areas for the FE season.
• Graze these areas during FE danger periods.
• Use these areas of poorer quality feed for breeding cows, ewes etc to reduce the stocking pressure on other parts of the farm.
• Avoid heavy grazing.
• Quit non-capital stock early.

Disclaimer
This material is provided in good faith for information purposes only, and the author does not accept any liability to any person for actions taken as a result of the information or advice (or the use of such information or advice) provided in these pages.

Facial Eczema (FE). Farmer Information. Part 19. (Sheep). Breeding. Buying FE resistant rams.

Agriculture, farming, animal husbandry, animal health, disease, Facial Eczema, prevention, breeding, genetics, FE resistant rams, buying rams, advice, recommendations

By Dr Clive Dalton

Original 1991 information written by Dr Barry Smith and Dr Neale Towers, Ruakura Agricultural Research Station, Hamilton, New Zealand.

'Piquet Hill' FE-resistant 2th rams, selected for FE resistance for 27 years

19. Facial Eczema: (Sheep).  Breeding. Buying FE resistant rams.

• Start breeding FE resistance into your flock. Why? Because it is a permanent gain,  adding value to your flock and makes other annual precautions easier and less critical.
•  Tolerance to FE is strongly inherited. About 40 percent of the differences in resistance to FE seen between individual animals is due to their sire.
• Therefore progress in selecting and breeding more resistant sheep can be rapid, and significant gains can be made in only a few years of concentrated selection.
• But remember always that breeding for resistance is a long term commitment - it will not provide an overnight solution to your FE problems.
• Work in the Ruakura Resistant flock shows that the proportion of animals able to withstand a standard toxin dose can be increased by at least 2.5 to 3.5 percent each year.
• AgResearch operates a performance testing service called RAMGUARD to identify the most FE resistant rams amongst those tested by the breeders tested mob.
• Ram breeders using the RAMGUARD FE testing service for six years have doubled the resistance level of their flocks.
  

Ram Buyers

• Begin buying your rams from a breeder selecting for FE resistance using the RAMGUARD FE resistance testing service.
•  If your current ram breeder is not testing for FE resistance either:
• (1). Persuade him/her to start testing.
• (2). Change to a breeder who is.
  

Buying FE Resistance Rams

• Buy only from breeders who are selecting for FE resistance.
•  You should be consistent in this. You can lose the gains you have made if you bring in susceptible sheep from untested flocks.
• Select a ram breeder with sheep suited to your type of country, and with the conformation and production traits you want in your flock. Make sure he/she is committed to doing a good job selecting for FE resistance and is not just "window-dressing" to secure ram sales.
• It is not sufficient to hear the breeder say he is testing for FE resistance. You have to check out the programme and be sure that the rams you buy share the resistance that has been developed.
  

Check the following points:

• The number of rams tested and the number used as sires. The more rams tested and the smaller the percentage used as sires the faster progress should be.
•  Whether the breeder has used RAMGUARD to identify the most resistant 5, 10,  20 or 50 percent of the rams tested.
• Breeders using rams from the top 5 percent will make faster progress than those selecting rams from the top 50 percent.
• Check that only rams from the top resistant group are used as sires in the breeder’s flock.
• Using rams from low on the FE resistance ranking because they have high wool weights etc will slow down progress.
• Check what priority the breeder places on FE resistance to see if it matches your priorities. Placing a high priority on FE may slow progress for the other traits and vice versa.
• How many ram crops have been tested. So long as a sound selection programme has been established, the longer the breeder has been testing the further he will have progressed.
• The number of breeders with established FE selection programmes is relatively small at present so your choice of breeders may be limited to those who have only recently started selection for FE resistance.
• But remember, how well a breeder is selecting for FE resistance is more important than how long he has been testing.
• A new breeder testing a large number of rams and only using the most resistant rams will quickly overtake a breeder who tests only a few rams and/or uses rams from low on the resistance ranking list.
• Above all make sure that the rams you buy are sired by tested facial eczema resistant rams.
• Having found a breeder in whom you have confidence, stick with him/her.  Your progress will parallel their flock with you trailing by 2 or 3 seasons.
• Be prepared to pay a premium for rams from breeders running a sound FE selection programme. You will benefit from more resistant stock, better production and fewer losses. The breeder has high testing costs to meet in selecting resistant sires.

Disclaimer
This material is provided in good faith for information purposes only, and the author does not accept any liability to any person for actions taken as a result of the information or advice (or the use of such information or advice) provided in these pages.