New Booklet to Help Farmers Fight Parasites

UK - A new booklet has been published in a QMS project in collaboration with Moredun Research Institute to help livestock farmers minimise the impact of parasites on their businesses.
calendar icon 26 August 2009
clock icon 2 minute read

The free booklet, Understanding The Life Cycle of Ruminant Parasites, has been launched to give farmers a guide to identifying, tackling and controlling the major parasites that affect sheep and cattle in Scotland.

View the online document (PDF file, 2MB)

Grazing ruminants are affected by a range of internal and external parasites. The diseases they cause cost the UK livestock industry many millions of pounds each year due to losses in productivity and the costs associated with control. They also represent a significant animal welfare concern.

QMS Chairman, Donald Biggar, said: “Quality Meat Scotland has a remit to help improve the efficiency of the red meat sector as well as ensuring that animal welfare is addressed. The concept behind the development of this booklet was to produce an easy to understand practical guide to the clinical signs of specific parasitic diseases with guidance as to how to deal with the problem.

“These diseases affect the wellbeing of the animal, the quality of the meat produced for the food chain as well as the economic efficiency and financial return to the individual businesses.”

The booklet has been produced by parasitologists from Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh. Principal parasitologist at Moredun, Dr Frank Jackson, commented: “We are delighted to work with QMS on this project and produce a booklet highlighting the problem of the major internal parasites affecting livestock in Scotland. Parasitic gut worms, liver fluke, lung worm and sheep scab are all serious threats to animal health and welfare and we hope that this booklet will help farmers boost the health, productivity and profitability of their livestock.”

He added, “There is a significant section on anthelmintic resistance in this booklet with practical recommendations for effective worm control to help farmers minimise the development of this problem on their farms.”

The booklet is colour coded so it is easy to quickly identify the areas of greatest interest to you and it should be used in-conjunction with advice from your own veterinary practice and animal health advisor.

Donald said: “As the Scottish livestock industry becomes increasingly aware of the wider implications of anthelmintic resistance we need to be able to minimise the impact that gut worms can have on livestock production.

“Target timing of worming enabled one of the QMS monitor farms – a hill farm in Bute - to reduce the volume of wormer used both decreasing handling time and reducing the farm’s annual cost of worming treatment by £56.23.”

TheCattleSite News Desk

© 2000 - 2024 - Global Ag Media. All Rights Reserved | No part of this site may be reproduced without permission.