JETTING SHEEP DEMONSTRATED

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29910, 25 August 1962, Page 6

JETTING SHEEP DEMONSTRATED

AS a means of freeing ewes carrying a heavy fleece of W’ool close to lambing, or after lambing with their lambs, from the great majority of lice, jetting is of considerable interest at present. This procedure has already been mentioned on these pages and this week after the store sheep sale at Addington market Mr John Greenslade, a dipping contractor who handies between 200.000 and 300.000 sheep a season. demonstrated the procedure. Mr Greenslade emphasised that jetting should be done carefully to give the procedure a fair trial.

Mr Greenslade jets infested sheep in a narrow race in which they are held in line ahead with the jet gun operator or operators standing outside and leaning over the With the five-jet gun he uses Mr Greenslade puts three to four pints of Grenol or Nankor, which is one and the same thing, on each sheep at a pressure of 40 to 60lb. He jets each sheep under the chin and up the brisket in the belief that this is the area where most lice survive whether plunge or shower dipped, tip sprayed, dusted or jetted, and he also does three and a half runs along the middle of the back, starting from the rear, holding the gun just on the surface of the wool.

To get the right amount of insecticide on to the sheep the suggestion is that the operator should determine how long it takes him to jet along the back and brisket and under the neck, and then release the gun into a bucket for the same time to check on the amount that is going on. Examination of woolly sheep after treatment shows that the insecticide penetrates down to the skin level quite quickly and while it does not

cover the skin completely it leaves bands around the neck and body. Even where lice are not in direct contact with the insecticide the fumigant action is apparently enough to kill lice, and Mr Greenslade mentioned how' a louse had been found dead on the hocks of a sheep 22 minutes after treatment. Mr T. D. McNeill, a farmer of Weedons, said that he had had sheep treated through a spray race. There had been an estimated 90 per cent, kill but there were still lice and young nils on the sheep when they were jetted. Subsequent examination had failed to find a live louse and while neither Mr Greenslade nor the Department of Agriculture claimed that the method was 100 per cent, successful it appeared to him that it had been.

Mr Greenslade thinks that this method can also be successfully used with ewes and lambs. Here he believes that ewes and lambs should be handled in small groups with Ute ewes and lambs being treated separately. For lambs the pressure of the jetting gun has to be reduced. By doing twes and lambs in small groups they can be released and moved away together to facilitate mothering up.

In a letter to “The Press” this week Mr G. G. Taylor, technical manager of a firm manufacturing herbicides and stock remedies, say’s that short of plunge or shower dipping, jetting had proved to be the most effective method to employ on long wool. Though jetting for protection of sheep against lice and keds had not yet been fully investigated, it might well prove to be more effective than tip spraying, and was certainly the best method of protecting sheep against blowfly strike.