Dosing cattle

rodders

Well-Known Member
What would cattle around 15-16 months old need dosed for at this time of year? They were dosed with closamectin pour on in the spring. There’s no coughing or nothing out of them but just wondering what I should give them for peace of mind. Thanks.
 
What would cattle around 15-16 months old need dosed for at this time of year? They were dosed with closamectin pour on in the spring. There’s no coughing or nothing out of them but just wondering what I should give them for peace of mind. Thanks.
Spend your money on faecal egg counts
 
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As said above, save your money and time. Just my own personal experience here but I'd stay away from that closa-shite pouron. I've used it and it's injectible version in the past and found it less then satisfactory.
 
Anyone thinking about winter dosing yet?
Had a problem this last while with a few calved heifers and cows becoming thin. It seemed to particularly affect anything that got a bit of stress - a cow that had a hard calving and a few heifers that had calves at foot. Symptoms were watery dung and animal becoming suddenly thin. We dosed for fluke and worms, gave minerals, took blood samples and then the vet took dung samples and put them under the microscope and gave a basic diagnosis of rumen fluke. We dosed any animal with symptoms (4 altogether). We removed young calves from 2 of the heifers and put the calves on meal mixed with milk powder. The heifers really went to nothing and only improved with a rumen fluke dose. Further dung samples were taken and sent to the lab where rumen fluke was showing very high in almost all animals in the last few weeks. We have just housed most of them and we are thinking about doing a blanket dose of all animals with levafas diamond in the next 10 days and possibly coming back over everything with a cheaper fluke and worm dose in 10 to 12 weeks time to hit anything the levafas diamond misses. It's not ideal to be blanket dosing with levafas diamond, but we do appear to have an infestation in some of our breeding animals which needs to be sorted out.
 
Anyone thinking about winter dosing yet?
Had a problem this last while with a few calved heifers and cows becoming thin. It seemed to particularly affect anything that got a bit of stress - a cow that had a hard calving and a few heifers that had calves at foot. Symptoms were watery dung and animal becoming suddenly thin. We dosed for fluke and worms, gave minerals, took blood samples and then the vet took dung samples and put them under the microscope and gave a basic diagnosis of rumen fluke. We dosed any animal with symptoms (4 altogether). We removed young calves from 2 of the heifers and put the calves on meal mixed with milk powder. The heifers really went to nothing and only improved with a rumen fluke dose. Further dung samples were taken and sent to the lab where rumen fluke was showing very high in almost all animals in the last few weeks. We have just housed most of them and we are thinking about doing a blanket dose of all animals with levafas diamond in the next 10 days and possibly coming back over everything with a cheaper fluke and worm dose in 10 to 12 weeks time to hit anything the levafas diamond misses. It's not ideal to be blanket dosing with levafas diamond, but we do appear to have an infestation in some of our breeding animals which needs to be sorted out.
We used levafas diamond on out cows last year, seems to have done the job nicely
 
Anyone thinking about winter dosing yet?
Had a problem this last while with a few calved heifers and cows becoming thin. It seemed to particularly affect anything that got a bit of stress - a cow that had a hard calving and a few heifers that had calves at foot. Symptoms were watery dung and animal becoming suddenly thin. We dosed for fluke and worms, gave minerals, took blood samples and then the vet took dung samples and put them under the microscope and gave a basic diagnosis of rumen fluke. We dosed any animal with symptoms (4 altogether). We removed young calves from 2 of the heifers and put the calves on meal mixed with milk powder. The heifers really went to nothing and only improved with a rumen fluke dose. Further dung samples were taken and sent to the lab where rumen fluke was showing very high in almost all animals in the last few weeks. We have just housed most of them and we are thinking about doing a blanket dose of all animals with levafas diamond in the next 10 days and possibly coming back over everything with a cheaper fluke and worm dose in 10 to 12 weeks time to hit anything the levafas diamond misses. It's not ideal to be blanket dosing with levafas diamond, but we do appear to have an infestation in some of our breeding animals which needs to be sorted out.

Got PM done on young bull that's indoors about 3 months and I was surprised to see rumen fluke in small numbers in his stomach
 
Got PM done on young bull that's indoors about 3 months and I was surprised to see rumen fluke in small numbers in his stomach

I understand that it's natural to have rumen fluke in small numbers. They do little harm unless that are at a certain level. I'm not up to scratch with exact figures but our vet explained the dung sample results to me and pointed out that they were above the level where he would recommend dosing specifically for it.

In your case, him being indoors is an unusual case. You would have to wonder how he picked them up? I think the life cycle of them is 12 weeks.
 
I understand that it's natural to have rumen fluke in small numbers. They do little harm unless that are at a certain level. I'm not up to scratch with exact figures but our vet explained the dung sample results to me and pointed out that they were above the level where he would recommend dosing specifically for it.

In your case, him being indoors is an unusual case. You would have to wonder how he picked them up? I think the life cycle of them is 12 weeks.

Were there in tiny numbers so harmless. That bull could have been in for 3 months or longer, so they weren't something I was expecting to see
 
Anyone thinking about winter dosing yet?
Had a problem this last while with a few calved heifers and cows becoming thin. It seemed to particularly affect anything that got a bit of stress - a cow that had a hard calving and a few heifers that had calves at foot. Symptoms were watery dung and animal becoming suddenly thin. We dosed for fluke and worms, gave minerals, took blood samples and then the vet took dung samples and put them under the microscope and gave a basic diagnosis of rumen fluke. We dosed any animal with symptoms (4 altogether). We removed young calves from 2 of the heifers and put the calves on meal mixed with milk powder. The heifers really went to nothing and only improved with a rumen fluke dose. Further dung samples were taken and sent to the lab where rumen fluke was showing very high in almost all animals in the last few weeks. We have just housed most of them and we are thinking about doing a blanket dose of all animals with levafas diamond in the next 10 days and possibly coming back over everything with a cheaper fluke and worm dose in 10 to 12 weeks time to hit anything the levafas diamond misses. It's not ideal to be blanket dosing with levafas diamond, but we do appear to have an infestation in some of our breeding animals which needs to be sorted out.

Levafas is a strong dose,
I had heifers go down after being dosed . What about Zanil.
I dose with zanil or levafas at housing or drying off .
Then after 2 or 3 weeks dose with a 3 stage fluke dose.
 
Doing an experiment here this autumn. Going to do a milk recording ourselves, number each sample and put lactation number on the bottle. Samples sent to lab. They will do 3 pooled samples. 1st lactation, 2nd lactation and 3rd + lactation. If we get a high reading in the 1st lactation cows then they will do individual samples to pick out the cows that need a dose.
If it works I'll be pushing the idea forward with my research topic, it'd be an idea that could be incorporated with milk recording.
 
Doing an experiment here this autumn. Going to do a milk recording ourselves, number each sample and put lactation number on the bottle. Samples sent to lab. They will do 3 pooled samples. 1st lactation, 2nd lactation and 3rd + lactation. If we get a high reading in the 1st lactation cows then they will do individual samples to pick out the cows that need a dose.
If it works I'll be pushing the idea forward with my research topic, it'd be an idea that could be incorporated with milk recording.
With relation to what parasite are you talking about?
 
Liver fluke and Oestriga (common stomach worms).
From buying cull cows, you can easily enough pick out over 80% of the cows with liver fluke on point of entry. Stomach worms shouldn't be an issue unless poor grazing management or you have developed an animal with little or no self defences.
 
From buying cull cows, you can easily enough pick out over 80% of the cows with liver fluke on point of entry. Stomach worms shouldn't be an issue unless poor grazing management or you have developed an animal with little or no self defences.

There was never a rumen fluke issue with cows here until the last 2 years. We lost 1 cow with it and 3 more came close to death as a result of loss of body condition.

The old man puts it down to a change in dosing practice. Up to 3 or 4 years ago, every cow here was dosed with a table spoon of bluestone dissolved in water upon housing. It's something that we are strongly considering going back to. Not advocating it for anyone here, but was a traditional method for fluke treatment. Lads used to leave a solid block of it in a river above cattle drinking points so that it dissolved into the water as it flowed across it and it was said to be a great treatment for fluke.
 
anyone else notice cows coughing this year, never really seen in cows previously but alot of mine seemed bad this autumn, when you would move them they would be in a bad way coughing, i had used bi mectin pour on which didnt seem to have any effect so they all got bimectin plus injection going in, presume it was lungworm issue, i do notice some with runny noses still
 
Probably 5/6 years since we were recommended this dosing combination by our vet . Used it every year since . God only knows what dosing if any these cattle got before coming here .

parasite challenge chnages from year to year, I would be consulting with the vet. but I also find vets heavy handed when advising on worming
 
U hear alot about getting the dung tested did anyone here every send samples or were do u send them and how much it cost ???
 
U hear alot about getting the dung tested did anyone here every send samples or were do u send them and how much it cost ???

We send ours through the vet to the lab that he uses. Cost's about €15 per sample. (Would usually be sending more than 1 sample at a time). However, the young vet that came out to me when I had a cow lose condition due to rumen fluke took the dung sample and examined it under the microscope back in their own clinic. She wasn't able to put an exact figure on it but was able to tell me that rumen fluke egg count looked very high compared to what it normally should be.
 
From buying cull cows, you can easily enough pick out over 80% of the cows with liver fluke on point of entry. Stomach worms shouldn't be an issue unless poor grazing management or you have developed an animal with little or no self defences.
High stocking rates will lend to higher rates of parasite loading in pastures. A few cows diseased will jeapordise the health status of the whole herd so finding a few cows that might need a dose is a good way to help break the cycle as the cows are going to be indoors. Not many farmers not dosing cows.
 
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