Source: Radio New Zealand
123RF
Livestock farmers are being urged to keep their animals well fed and circulated to avoid the spread of moisture-loving parasites.
Downpours and gusts that lashed the country in recent weeks have left farmers grappling with paddocks turned to lakes, keeping stock fed and dry, and navigating cut-off tracks, roads and bridges.
Heavy rainfall and warm conditions created an optimal habitat for parasites like worms and their larvae to spread in pasture.
Wormwise manager Ginny Dodunski said the worm larvae animals ate when they were grazing lived in droplets of water.
“[The larvae] are pretty good at clinging onto the grass blades, so unless you’ve actually had land move down a hill or you heaps of water flowing through your property, they’re still going to be there.”
Dodunski said sheep and cattle were subject to different worm species, but all would thrive in pasture during wet and warm conditions.
“The conditions that we’ve got at the moment definitely favour larvae survival,” she said.
“So we’ve got to get around that with really good feeding and then thinking about how we can use our different stock classes on our farms to clean up behind each other.”
She said stock rotation and grazing management were key to preventing further spread.
“One of the worst things we could do now with our lambs and calves is have them just going round and round and round their same little area on the farm, because they will pick up lots of larvae and because they’re young, they will put out a lot more worms themselves, so they create these hotspots for themselves.”
Dodunksi said farmers could capitalise on good lamb prices and focus more on fattening up the ewes, to buffer any pasture production knocks that might come with pests and diseases this summer.
“Get rid of your lambs, get the weight back on the ewes, and get yourself set up for next year, because some of these other pests and diseases might knock some pasture production around later on. So having ewes in good condition now is going to be a bit of a buffer for some of that as well.”
She said fortunately most sheep were already shorn by now which helped prevent flystrike in summer months.
She also urged farmers to monitor for any sudden deaths and consider spore and faecal counts.
Furthermore, Beef and Lamb said farmers were reporting a proliferation of these pests and diseases, as well as facial eczema and porina.
Earth Sciences New Zealand maps showed wet soils were especially pronounced on the East Coast, Bay of Plenty and pockets of South Waikato, Manawatū and Kaikōura as of Monday.
Historic soil moisture levels and current as of Monday. Supplied / NIWA
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand