[Foobar]

Used the bucket and food to check all of the others.

I find that it's easier to spot problems when you don't have the bucket of food.  There is a lot to be said for just standing and watching for 10-15mins. Once your sheep get used to you just "being there", they behave as they would do when you aren't there and it's much easier to spot one that is behaving oddly (and in my experience every sick sheep exhibits some sort of behaviour that is not quite the norm, even if it's subtle).  When there is food involved they may well quite forget the fact that they are in pain or being irritated by something and gallop happily  over to scoff the food.
I have BWM and I don't think I could spot a strike in the black wool, I find it hard enough to spot a dirty bottom (not that I get many of those).


One thing I would advocate if you have sheep with horns - stockholm tar. I bung a squirt on the heads of all my rams/ram lambs whenever they are gathered.  It can last a good couple of weeks and it's dirt cheap.  I've even splodged a bit on their rumps too when the flies have been really bad, when I ran out of crovect - okay, so my sheep are black so it doesn't show up, if you had white sheep you might not want to paint them black .  I would even have been tempted to spodge it on myself yesterday as I got about 30 horse fly bites whilst hay making!

[bazzais]

We also try to put our sheep and lambs upto the more windy top fields when the flies come around - also making sure that they are not in really long grass that when wet will keep the sheepies damp.

[smudger]

Just going to check mine but only just sheared my ewes this week - how quickly can I spray crovect / click after shearing? Lambs were done with crovect a few weeks ago..


Last year I sheared my gfd lambs end may with the ewes (although they were born end of Jan) rather than risk it

[Foobar]

Just going to check mine but only just sheared my ewes this week - how quickly can I spray crovect / click after shearing?

You can use Crovect "off shears", i.e. straight away.

[SallyintNorth]

Just going to check mine but only just sheared my ewes this week - how quickly can I spray crovect / click after shearing?

You can use Crovect "off shears", i.e. straight away.

You can, yes, but the general feeling is there isn't enough wool for it to stick to, so most people leave it a couple of weeks.

[17AndCounting]

Thanks Foobar, we used the bucket/food to get them close enough to have a better look at them, otherwise most of them are so skittish you can't get near them.

Wonky looks better today, he's grazing and baa-ing and showing an interest if you're there (he was bottle fed so he's very friendly). He's still scouring though - but there are no maggots in it. I can't see any live maggots on him, I'll check him again tonight. When would it be safe to wash him (because of the scouring) and re-Crovect him?

I'll look for the tar stuff.  We did find it hard to check the BWM and her lamb, and the Hebs too - and Crovecting them was difficult, let's hope I got enough on! All of our land seems quite windy (quite a steep slope) but soon they'll be moving onto much longer grass.

I'd better go and order some more Crovect I think.

[gerpsych]

You can, yes, but the general feeling is there isn't enough wool for it to stick to, so most people leave it a couple of weeks.

I  didn't know that and it is useful information. We did ours when we sheared and I think we will get out again with the crovec.

[Herdygirl]

when we gather for shearing we treat the lambs then but leave it a couple of weeks for the ewes, a bit out of cinque i must admit but we gradually get them into it by cutting a couple of days off both ends of the time span.
 
I agree with Fleecewife a shot of antibiotic is a good idea if badly struck  ie if the maggots have started to eat into the poor sheep ...and they do 
 
To keep them lessed stressed if you are gathering them ..feed them at the same place all the time, make a small pen that you leave up and they will get used to it.  i just shout 'come on girls ' and they head for the pen! all 60 odd of them (with a bit of good old shepherding, slow and calm, no rushing and be prepared to do it again).
 
 
 
 

[moprabbit]

I spend a lot of time with my sheep as they are quite friendly - they come for a stroke or to be brushed. I wondered if I can use Clik and still handle/stroke my sheep? I wondered about doing them before I went away for a few days. But would want to be able to handle them when I got back. Thank you

[Foobar]

I spend a lot of time with my sheep as they are quite friendly - they come for a stroke or to be brushed. I wondered if I can use Clik and still handle/stroke my sheep? I wondered about doing them before I went away for a few days. But would want to be able to handle them when I got back. Thank you

Noah says:
"Do not shear sheep in the 3 months after treatment.
Handle sheep as little as possible after treatment as residues remain on the fleece for some weeks.
If you need to handle sheep after treatment, wear coveralls and Wellington boots. If sheep are wet also wear waterproof trousers and coat."
So I think that's a no-no, unless you can restrict yourself to a tickle under the chin .

[wayfarer]

Keep an eye on the lamb as I thought I had dealt with my fly strike by getting the sheep on the ground and carefully going over all the area around his bottom and then sprayed with crovect.  Luckily the maggots appeared to all be on the surface.  A week later I noticed another spot of strike where I had sprayed and the maggots were within the skin by then.  Another good clean up and more crovect applied directly has sorted the problem but I had been lulled into a false sense of security after the first crovect application.

Mine also had been scouring and egg counts showed that it was Nematodirus and as I only have 4 lambs for home consumption the vet suggested I use Panacur 10% for dogs rather than by a litre of the stuff. 

[NLL]

just dealt with my first maggot attack this afternoon. really horrid,poor little lamb.I have clipped off a lot of fleece, covered him with crovect and given him a shot of amoxypen la and metacam. When can I use clic on him now.I,ve got him in for the night with a mate so I can watch him.

[Fleecewife]

    <<Crovect prevents blowfly strike for between 6 and 8 weeks. Kills maggots. Treatment of tick infestation with a persistent efficacy of 10 weeks. Kills biting lice. Protects against head fly.>>
(from the Novartis website)
 
We assume Crovect is effective for 6 weeks, and we repeat spray them that amount apart, so if you want to change to Clik then apply it 6 weeks from now.
 
Maggots will make off into the fleece at quite some speed as soon as you disturb them, so you need to search the little B*****$ out and get them with the Crovect.  Open the fleece right down to the roots, especially with a fine fleeced and very woolly animal.

[NLL]

thanks. I cut off a lot of fleece so hopefully,got the horrid b...ers.the lamb seems quite ok, he,s eating and walking about Not something I want to repeat.

[lachlanandmarcus]

To give you hope, my old ram got struck in a single day absolutely terribly, his skin and gums were white they had sucked so much out of him and I could lead him along which normally would be totally impossible. It did require vet and antibiotics as well as Crovect and whatever else we could throw at it, he had large gaping wounds, but the old boy healed up completely and lived to live his ladies again, so I think it is however awful looking, very rarely hopeless with fly strike and as soon as the maggots are out (even if you are digging them out of open flesh) and treated the sheep tend to (very Un sheep like) rally very quickly.