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Cattle Worming

Hay Feeder

Well-known member
I have been using pour on wormers for some time because of the low price and ease of application. One of my bull customers told me he went back to injectable wormers to make sure it gets in to the cattle. I bought 500 ml of Cydectin Injectable for our local feed store at 155.00. They took off another 7 dollars because it had not been selling. Used it plus some more on the cows and they are looking real good and slicking up great better than ever.
I had to make two injections per cow to get in all in...
Not trying to promote anything but I could actually see the results in the cows. I always knew generic wormers were only about 80 percent good.
But so much is wasted and does not get into the cow.
 

sic 'em reds

Well-known member
We have used Ivomec plus a few times in the fall to help with flukes, if we were to have them from irrigation water and the swamp ponds. The only thing I'll say is to make sure to use a good lice pour with it. Some of ours looked pretty bad coming off the winter this year. I was really disappointed in that.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
Any injectible is better than a pour on. Pour-ons are only getting
50% of the worms because they have built an immunty to the drug.

Do you know that when the avermectin companies test their cattle
for infomation to sell it to the public, they SHAVE THE HAIR
on the cows back.

That drug on a normal cow, has to pass through the hair, the
hide and the internals. It loses a lot of it's effectiveness by the
time it gets to the internals. Thus the immunity build up.

Try this link from BEEF magazine, 2005. Read Dr. Bliss's words
about this. He is one of the country's formost parasiteologists.


http://beefmagazine.com/mag/beef_deworming_dilemma/index.html


And sic 'em reds, lice is not hard to kill, but Dr. Bliss teaches us
that the only way to kill lice "is to pour them twice" about 2 weeks apart.
Not many of us is going to do that, so we pour them once and hope
it works. Cold weather brings lice out more than ever. So you don't need to buy an expensive lice or grub product. They are easy to kill.
We use generic ivomectin for the lice and grubs. We do not try
to worm with avermectin products. We've ran fecals...the products don't work. It's the carrier in the generic products that is inferior, that's why they don't work as well as the brand names ones.

Hope this helps. Dr. Bliss is at Mid American Labs, Vernon, Wisconsin
if anyone want's to call him. I've heard him myself tell all this to
a room full of Montana veterinarians.

FWIW
 

Justin

Well-known member
this post reminds me of question I was going to ask earlier.......How many of you pour/worm your cows in the spring? I know the most common is to worm in the fall probably the same time you preg check. It seems there are more and more doing it in the spring aswell. So, is it worth the effort, or is once in the fall all ya need?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
sic 'em reds said:
We have used Ivomec plus a few times in the fall to help with flukes, if we were to have them from irrigation water and the swamp ponds. The only thing I'll say is to make sure to use a good lice pour with it. Some of ours looked pretty bad coming off the winter this year. I was really disappointed in that.

We were just discussing this today....I was up fencing and met up with one of the hired men of the neighboring ranch working on the same fence area...
Last year we had a terrible time with their yearlings tearing down fence- but he said the main problem was they used an injectable- and didn't pour for lice before turning out- because the vet told them the sun would take care of the lice...Thing he didn't tell them was they have to get rid of the old hair before the sun works- and the yearlings just rubbed the fenceline into a hairball- and tore it down all over...

This year they've poured them all and are seeing no problems...

We'll see- they're set to move 1900 head into the pastures next to me in the next couple of days... :wink:
 

Grassfarmer

Well-known member
At the risk of being seen as a crazy (again :cry: ) I'll venture my opinion. You folks in North America are largely being fooled that there is any need to treat adult cattle for worms. Sure there will be a worm burden but only in very occasional instances will it be significant enough to affect an adult bovine. It's another of those things I notice by moving countries - hardly anyone in the UK would treat adult cattle for worms. No-one uses salt blocks there either. Conditions for large populations of worms are greater in the UK too - wet, mild climate with grass growing almost year round, far higher stock densities on land that is usually muddy and puddled in places year round. I know of occasional mountain farms in Scotland where they had chronic liver fluke problems in their sheep and these places would treat their cows for worms once a year.
We haven't used a pour on ivomectin product for 5 years now and the cows aren't one bit the worse for it. Our cows do shed a bit of hair when it warms up in April but are just as shiny as anyone elses by June.
An exception occurred this year when I had one of my real old cows in the chute recently she had a heavy infestation of lice eggs (but no hatched lice on her) in some old matted hair and some keds walking about on her underside. I looked at several other cows she had been close to and they were spotless - why were they attracted to only this cow? I borrowed some Ivomec from a neighbor and it cured the problem. Treating 1 cow in 5 years sure saved me buying a lot of Ivomec.

Can anyone produce some data on the proven advantages of treating adult cattle for worms in non-chronic cases? (ie improved weight gain, increased fertility etc) I'd be interested to see it. Putting a "shine" on cattle does not prove to me that there is either a need or an economic advantage to the practice.
 

Texan

Well-known member
Justin said:
this post reminds me of question I was going to ask earlier.......How many of you pour/worm your cows in the spring? I know the most common is to worm in the fall probably the same time you preg check. It seems there are more and more doing it in the spring aswell. So, is it worth the effort, or is once in the fall all ya need?
I used to only worm in the fall - because that's when it was most convenient. But I switched to doing it in the spring because it made more sense to me that spring was the time that they would face the biggest challenge.

Now I only worm in the spring, and try to time it for when I get close to peak forage/bull turnout. I've quit doing it in the fall unless a cow is noticeably wormy.
 

Texan

Well-known member
Grassfarmer said:
You folks in North America are largely being fooled that there is any need to treat adult cattle for worms. Sure there will be a worm burden but only in very occasional instances will it be significant enough to affect an adult bovine.
I don't disagree with you that there is a lot of immunity in adults. But I just feel that when I don't deworm cows, I leave them to serve as worm factories for calves and yearlings.
 

sic 'em reds

Well-known member
Can anyone produce some data on the proven advantages of treating adult cattle for worms in non-chronic cases? (ie improved weight gain, increased fertility etc) I'd be interested to see it. Putting a "shine" on cattle does not prove to me that there is either a need or an economic advantage to the practice

As far as adult cattle go, I am not sure if there is info on weight gain, but for fertility there is alot of research as far as worming them for flukes, which will mess up your fertility. That's why we have tried the Ivomec Plus injectable. We run the majority of our cattle in swampy areas and irrigated pasture. I have seen tons of snail eggs, and that is supoosedly where the flukes come from. Thats why we worm.

Yearlings and calves are growing through the summer and there is research that shows improved weight gains both in the spring and fall on them, so we worm to try and capture those pounds. Am I going to weigh every month? No.

I was able to buy pour on for $525 for 10 litre of Cydectin this spring, so for about $4/hd on cows, and less on yearlings and calves, it's pretty cheap feel good medicine. It also helps to have a wife that works for a company that also has an animal health company that gives us a good discount!!
 

Kato

Well-known member
We do the cows with Dectomax before Christmas each winter. Lice in the summer just don't seem to be an issue here, but in the winter they are pretty reliable. If you do them too soon in the fall, you won't get them.

We do the calves at pasture turnout. They're cheap to do at that size anyway, even with the more expensive Dectomax. Dectomax has a longer duration than the generics, and will actually keep the flies off for about a month. That's a bonus. It's also a good move for summer dehorning. They get re done in the fall, and that same long duration prevents them picking up stuff from the auction bought calves next door. :wink:

The auction mart riffraff we buy in the fall gets generic ivermectin. We've found that "Putting a shine on them" does pay as well. We've found that treated feeders just have nicer coats at sale time, and a good short thick healthy shiny coat goes a long way to getting a better price for those calves. It's an indication of health, and of coming from a good home, and the buyers know it. You can make all the claims you like about vaccinations and such when they go through the ring, but if those calves have long shaggy coats with big holes scratched in them, no one will believe you.
 

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