Whether your main enterprise is dairy, beef or sheep, flies are more than just a nuisance to your livestock and are often the vectors for disease that can result in reduced productivity and profitability, as well as animal welfare issues.
This means that fly control over summer is vital. By reducing flies’ contact with livestock, we can better control key diseases such as Summer Mastitis, Pink Eye and Blowfly Strike. These common fly-borne diseases will reduce animal productivity and your profit margin, so it’s vital that we take a proactive approach to prevention. The good news is that we can introduce simple protocols to reduce the impact of summer flies- let’s take a look at how you can take back control
Summer Mastitis in particular is a disease which causes huge stress and expense for Irish farmers. Painful and debilitating, summer mastitis is a fly-borne disease resulting in the infection of the non-lactating mammary gland which affects dry cows, young calves and heifers.
Where animals are affected by summer mastitis, veterinary intervention will be required as antibiotics and anti-inflammatories will be needed. However, prevention is always better than cure as, in reality; most affected quarters will not recover.
Taking Control
Now is the time to act to reduce the risk on your farm. In most cases, successful prevention of fly-borne diseases is very reliant on the repelling the adult fly. Fly control is vital to prevent the disease from spreading from cow to cow. Fly control ear tags, insecticides, pour-ons and weekly application of stockholm tar can all play a role in fly control. Pour-ons (Dectospot, Spotinor, Ectospec) have zero milk withdrawal in cattle and can be used during both pregnancy and lactation.