Dewormers

[Till-Hill]

I ran fecals last week on 3 pastures, was interested to see what kind of worm load I had. All cattle are home raised off dairy

Pasture 1: 20 head of yearling Beef x Dairy steers and heifers 800# on 20 acres grass where I winter beef cows and they stayed till June when I bred them and they went to their summer. So this group has been this pasture for 42 days when fecal taken. They have a self feeder of Accuration finisher/corn and only pond water. They have been poured with Boss for flies and had 2 rounds of Alpha 7MB and Pryamid 5 presponse only thing they had in their life besides 2 doses of enforce as babies. Never had a dewormer in their life.

RESULT: Worms to low to administer Dewormer at this time

Pasture 2: 10 head Beef x Dairy steers and heifers 500# on a 5 acres pasture I had nothing on most of the winter. These cattle been on it for 108 days. They have a self feeder of Accuration finisher/corn and cattle waterer.They have been poured with Boss for flies no shots in them yet except for enforce as babies.

RESULT: NO WORMS FOUND

Pasture 3: 34 head of 15-20 Month old bred Dairy heifers/few xbred and Angus bull. This group would gotten Safeguard run thru the TMR mixer in December. They have a golf course pasture and are supplemented with TMR every other day. Been on pasture since snow melted.

RESULTS: NO WORMS FOUND

Pretty hard to spend money this fall/winter on dewormers..........

 

[76 Bar]

Thanks for sharing your findings. Likely past history & home raised is a pertinent part of your results. Easy to get caught up in the never ending diatribe/admonishment to strategically & regularly deworm when in fact it may not or rarely be required.

 

[Bigfoot]

"Real data" is always good to see. Appreciate you sharing that. I'm guilty of deworming anything I'm trying to grow, and neglecting the herd. You've got the best method.

 

[Till-Hill]

"Real data" is always good to see. Appreciate you sharing that. I'm guilty of deworming anything I'm trying to grow, and neglecting the herd. You've got the best method.

All the crossbreds we be sold before beef cows home and we were getting ready to run everyone thru chute and re-vac and would have poured them for worms had we not taken fecals. I'll save the time money and effort this go round.

Merck provided samples and will be sending a rep and follow up. I will be sure to share again....

 

[wbvs58]

"Real data" is always good to see. Appreciate you sharing that. I'm guilty of deworming anything I'm trying to grow, and neglecting the herd. You've got the best method.

All the crossbreds we be sold before beef cows home and we were getting ready to run everyone thru chute and re-vac and would have poured them for worms had we not taken fecals. I'll save the time money and effort this go round.

Merck provided samples and will be sending a rep and follow up. I will be sure to share again....

That's a bit of a bummer for Merck. The rep will have to do a bit of smooth talking now to sell you a bottle of something.

Ken

 

[Stocker Steve]

Sounds like they will need to run another test. :nod:

 

[TCRanch]

Interesting and thanks for sharing. Had a long discussion with my vet prior to working the cattle last spring, specifically about the possibility of resistance & whether worming twice a year was necessary. We decided calves and cows up to 3 years should still get wormed twice a year but 3+ only in the fall. This was without doing a fecal but he's very familiar with my herd.

 

[76 Bar]

Very good points TCR. Big Pharma & so called industry experts would have you believe one is leaving precious pounds on the table sans an aggressive & and often yearly multiple worming protocols. What they don't divulge is the very real risk of creating untimely resistance issues not to mention ka-ching ka-ching. Research has long proven judiciously worming at risk animals i.e. calves and up through 3 yr olds several times/year is prudent where as with maturity comes diminished susceptibility (resistance to internal parasite burdens). Alas...Its darned hard to revisit established practices that presumably were in the best interest of good mgt practices. ;-)

Thanks again Tim-Hill for the wake up call. :nod:

 

[Lucky_P]

I haven't dewormed anything older than a first-calf heifer nursing her first calf in decades.
Have not seen a cow(at the vet. diagnostic lab, where I was a diagnostic pathologist for 25 years) that died from 'worms' - other than a couple of imported yearlings from TX with liver flukes - since the early 1990s.
I'm firmly in the camp of doubting that there is any economic benefit to deworming adult cows, much less doing it twice yearly. If you're deworming the entire herd, you're creating problems that may come back to bite you down the road, as doing so kills all 'susceptible' worms, leaving only 'resistant' worms to reproduce and give rise to subsequent generations of parasites.

 

[Ebenezer]

We cut off at 3 YO. No problems. And never see any bounce back or improvement in calves before weaning. The only response I ever see is wet 2 YO heifers and then just some of them.

 

[76 Bar]

other than a couple of imported yearlings from TX with liver flukes

Aside from the laborious and expensive testing procedures, curious to hear your thoughts for pro active mgt for those of us whose cattle are in endemic liver fluke environs. Have't seen symptoms nor liver condemnations in my cattle but such is universally the case with the native deer & Elk population.

 

[Ebenezer]

other than a couple of imported yearlings from TX with liver flukes

Aside from the laborious and expensive testing procedures, curious to hear your thoughts for pro active mgt for those of us whose cattle are in endemic liver fluke environs. Have't seen symptoms nor liver condemnations in my cattle but such is universally the case with the native deer & Elk population.

Is there is a test for flukes?

 

[76 Bar]

Is there is a test for flukes?

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vm089
High level of condemned livers and subsequently a desire to pursue liver biopsies used to be the gold standard.

 

[farmerjan]

We buy some cattle along. Anything new to the farm gets wormed because we don't know what they have/have not been exposed to and use ivermectin or a generic. We don't routinely worm anything.... sometimes the calves will get a pour on, if they don't have the slick shine we want, but most of them usually do . We will worm any that are thin at pregnancy check, and it gets noted.... alot of my cows have some dairy in them, so they do tend to lose weight while milking good, and the calves are usually pretty stout and round. But we just don't do alot of worming. Maybe 10 % of adult cows? If the flies are bad, we will use a pour on as it seems to also help them to get rid of the flies. Have used a "fly pour on" I think it was Saber?
Seems like the flies will stick to one or 2 cows in a herd.... and they seem to get thinner too.

 

[76 Bar]

Good post Jan. The female cow "fly magnets" are enlightening to me. Yet to be convinced you can select for Bull fly resistance without negatively impacting testosterone/virility.