Research Unit For Diseases Of Sheep s Feet

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29016, 3 October 1959, Page 8

Research Unit For Diseases Of Sheep s Feet

A TEAM of experts under the control of the Department of Agriculture is to work on foot diseases of the sheep, including particularly footrot. This is an outcome of the footrot trial at Purua in the North Island in which the department and the Wool Board were associated.

In its annual report the Wool Board says that the results of two years’ work at Purua have demonstrated that there are several points to which there is no clear answer and it is obvious that footrot needs further close investigation by a team giving its whole time to the problem. The board notes that it is apparent that the accepted technique of control is far from successful when applied under high rainfall conditions in spite of careful work. The Department of Agriculture had ultimately accepted proposals along these lines from the board and an operational research group had been set up within the Animal Industry Division to- deal with foot diseases affecting sheep. Research Team Mr C. R. Ensor, who was closely associated with the Purua trial, was to have taken charge of the field control of foot diseases in New Zealand, but he has recently been appointed assistant livestock superintendent at Palmerston North and overall charge of footrot investigations is now in the hands of Dr. S. Jamieson, who has responsibility for methods of control of infectious diseases. Mr D. E. Gardner, a bachelor of veterinary science, is now doing a year’s postgraduate study in microbiology at the Otago Medical School before returning to Wallacevilic Animal Research Station later in the year to specialise in laboratory aspects of foot diseases. He will undertake research where there are failures in the field when established knowledge is applied in control work. The appointment of a stock inspector to be South Island field officer is now under action and a livestock instructor will work on field investigations at Purua.

In the South Island investigations will be initially centred on the Department of Agriculture’s irrigation research station at Winchmore and at the Invermay research station at Taieri. The Wool Board states that the flock on the Invermay farm was examined and all cases of footrot treated in February using the standard formalin bath treatment. A close watch will be kept on the flock, in which up to the time the board’s report went to press there had been no fresh cases. At Winchmore the flock will be dealt with on the same basis as at Invermay except that Chloromycetin hand treatment will be used.

At Kekerangu footrot had been successfully eradicated from two farms by a combined effort of neighbouring farmers who applied a team approach using several sheep cradles like those used at Purua, states the report. The Department of Agriculture had hoped to introduce in Marlborough a voluntary scheme for the certification of clean flocks, but unfortunately this approach to farmers had had to be postponed because of the demands on staff involved in the mucosal outbreak in the Wairarapa. Field investigations at Purua will be in two parts. Four or five farms will be selected where farmers are prepared to co-oper-

ate in detailed work. This will involve charting the precise position of foot disease lesions on the four hooves of affected sheep and the study of these after treatment to ascertain whether the treatment has been efficient, whether there is a liability of a recurrence of infection at the charted locations in the hooves, and other points which may have a bearing on the persistency of footrot infection in flocks which have apparently been treated thoroughly. Other farmers in the area will be left to continue treatment of their flocks on their own initiative to check on the effectiveness of training and experience so far given. Farmers in this group will be given guidance when they seek it and at the end of the year an assessment will be made of the results obtained on these farms. An attempt will also be made to estimate the economic importance of footrot. A Test The Wool Board states that the beginning of work in the South Island should soon disclose the effectiveness of present techniques and whether the results obtained with clean flocks are, in the farmer’s mind, worth the effort involved. The research unit will, in addition to its other duties, train departmental officers in footrot control and disseminate up-to-date information on the best methods so far evolved in coping with foot diseases. “Purua has shown that thorough paring followed by 10 per cent, formalin will cure footrot in the individual sheep.’’ says the board’s annual report. “It has also confirmed Australian findings that spelling pasture for a! week or so will clear it of in-1 faction. The unsolved problem' is that of re-infection in socalled clean sheep, even after the most meticulous inspection. Apparently the most minute spot I of infection can survive under! wet conditions, whereas it may not do so under dry conditions." The board says that it hopes! that farmers everywhere will! support and encourage the team of men entrusted with this re-