INFESTATION OF WORMS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 38, 24 November 1938, Page 8

INFESTATION OF WORMS.

LOW CONDITION OF EWES. CURATIVE T R EATMENT. Tlio condition of ewes in Canterbury has been lowered through the dry weather and the slowness with which the spring growth of grass has come away. To restore the.ewes to better health the following recommendations have been made by Mr T. Tv. Ewer, veterinary research officer of the livestock division of the Department of Agriculture (states “The Press”): —

(1) Take all the healthy ewes and lambs away on to a clean paddock and, if possible, move affected ewes to clean pasture. (2) Feed to sick ewes supplements of good-quality hay or chaff or oats, and a little linseed. This was most important, and lie regarded the provision of really good, clean feed the best method of treatment.

(3) Bring in the sick ewes —if possible, all the ewes in that mob—and drench them with Milestone and nicotine sulphate at the rate of two ounces of the 2 per cent solution (16oz Milestone, 16 oz nicotine, sulphate 40 per cent., five gallons water). It would be desirable to repeat such drenching in about a fortnight..

The practical result of the weather being experienced was to delay further the spring growth of the pastures, and the effect of this very general shortage of feed was that, while lambs were certainly thriving, it was being found impossible to maintain the condition of the ewes, said Mr Ewer.

This in itself, was had enough, hut what Was worse was that when ewes did not get a really adequate ration their resistance to disease was lowered. In the past this might well have 1 not represented a happening of practical importance to the farmer, since there were few specific diseases to which adult sheep were susceptible in this country. Blit- lie emphasised the fact that to-day the position was completely changed—for the worse. There had been built up, on the pastures of practically the whole of Canterbury, a very heavy worm infestation. These worms were either in the egg or in the immature or larvae stages. They were there because nearly all the sheep in the province were heavily infested with adult worms. The second n*nd fundamental reason why they were there was because of the weather. Only a relatively prolonged spell of dry weather would kill off these eggs and larvae and that'ivas what we have not had during the last three seasons. Ewes lmd their powers of resistance lowered, and at the same-time, with the return of warmer weather and with plenty of moisture still about on the pasture, the worm population was rapidly being built up to the colossal summer level. The result of the whole business was that ewes about a month or six weeks after lambing, began to go downhill rapidly, frequently to scour, and sofiic would die.