Products a plenty

November/December 2016 -- One of the things I wanted to learn when I visited Australia and New Zealand was how they managed internal parasites (worms) in their flocks and herds. The part of Australia we visited (Northern Tablelands) was a region where the barber pole worm was problematic. Merinos were also prevalent to the region, and they are a very susceptible breed. In New Zealand, the parasites, which were plenty, were mostly the scour-type, non-barber pole worm. I had no doubt that one of the causes of the ubiquitous dirty butts was worms. Crutching seemed to be as common a management practice as deworming.

A lot of shelf space

Besides asking farmers questions about how they controlled worms, we visited some farms stores. What we saw was a "mountain" of drugs for treating internal parasites. Because the flocks are so large, the dewormers were sold mostly in large containers. Don't know what you'd do if you only had a handful of sheep (or goats). Perhaps, they'd measure out a few doses for you. 

Don't have either of these drugs

Product for a lot of animals

Besides there being plenty of dewormers on the shelves, they also had dewormers we didn't. They sold  Zolvix® and Startect®, the two "newest" dewormers, which have yet to make it to the US and probably never will. The farm stores also had combination drugs. A combination dewormer is one that has more than one drug active. It's now recommended to clinically-parasitized small ruminants be given combination treatments (more than 1 dewormer at the same time).

This is the one I want for my farm.

A lot of levamisole

Most of the combo drugs contained praziquantel, the drug specific to killing tapeworms. For a parasite that isn't supposed to be pathogenic (that's what all the research shows), there were plenty of treatment options. I wish we had a combo drug (in the US) that contained praziquantel. I would use it. Years ago, I purchased a two year supply of Firstmectin®, a combination of levamisole and praziquantel, in South Africa. I put it in my luggage. I have a unique situation with tapeworms on my farm. Tapeworms put my lambs at greater risk for enterotoxemia (and colic). I deworm all lambs at weaning for tapeworms. I use albendazole. I would prefer to use praziquantel.

Combo drugs

Yeah, tapeworms aren't a problem.

Barbervax®, the vaccine for barber pole worm, was also available for purchase in both countries. However, I got the impression that it wasn't commonly used. That made sense to me. The vaccine requires several doses, and the barber pole worm isn't the primary parasite on many farms. A few years (before Covid), the PERC committee of ASI was trying find a way to bring the vaccine to the US (Canada was interested, too). Don't know if there was every any follow-up or if Covid put Barbervax® permanently on the back burner.

Vaccine for CL + clostridial diseases

Some dewormers also contained minerals, such as selenium. You could also purchase paste products (gels) for treating and controlling mineral deficiencies or preventing diseases.

Zinc oxide capsules