🌱 This week at Red Ants Farm
Boosters, drench and shearing, and a bug that ate egg days.
Busy week with the sheep. The lambs got their booster, the ewes and goats were drenched, and the shearing got done. Half the reason I shear now rather than later is the flies. A clean, short back going into summer beats chasing a struck sheep in January.
On the app side, one of you told me that every so often a day's egg count would go missing, and that she kept getting signed out on poor reception. Those two turned out to be the same bug. If the app couldn't reach your account when you opened it, it signed you out. Then, when you logged back in, it could overwrite anything your phone hadn't sent yet. It's fixed: poor signal no longer signs you out, and logging in keeps anything that hadn't synced. If you're often out of range, please update.
🪰 This week's topic
Flystrike starts on your date, not the calendar's.
The short version. Flystrike is maggots eating a live sheep. It moves fast, and it can kill. Most of the prevention costs nothing but timing: clean back ends, worms under control, and crutching or shearing before the risk peaks. After that it comes down to two habits: knowing when the flies arrive on your place, and looking at your sheep often enough to catch a strike on day one.
It starts on your date, not the calendar's. The usual answer is November to March, in warm, humid weather. But in a warm, wet spring the flies are early, and a sheltered gully on your block can be weeks ahead of an open paddock down the road. Beef + Lamb NZ names four blowfly species behind flystrike here, and they don't all turn up at once. So the useful question isn't "when does the season start?" It's "when did it start here last year?", and almost nobody knows.
The cheapest early warning. Beef + Lamb NZ describes a small fly trap baited with offal and checked weekly. When it starts catching blowflies, that's your signal to act. On a block you need one trap, in your worst paddock. Do it three years running and you'll have your own fly date, which no magazine can give you.
Your worst paddocks. B+LNZ's hot spots: sheltered, scrubby gullies, thistle patches, bush lines and the lee side of shelterbelts. Anywhere warm and still. In high-risk spells they suggest moving sheep to higher, windier ground. You probably already know your two worst paddocks. Write them down now, so the decision's made before January.
🧹 The free half does most of the work
Crutch and dag before the risk, not after. Book the shearer early. Everyone wants the same fortnight.
Keep worms under control. Scouring turns a clean back end into a dirty one in a couple of days.
Treat damaged skin, like footrot and cuts. It gives flies a place to start.
Deal with dead stock quickly. A carcass is a blowfly nursery.
Spot it early. Watch for stamping, tail twitching, a sheep turning to nibble one spot, or one off on its own in the shade. Look for a damp, dark patch of wool, usually at the back end or over the shoulders.
If you find one: get the sheep in, clip the wool around the strike and a bit beyond, remove all the maggots (some will be deeper than they look), apply a dressing labelled for treating flystrike, and check it daily. Check the rest of the mob while they're in. Call the vet if it's large or deep, or the sheep is dull or off its feed. The welfare code requires struck sheep to be treated at the earliest opportunity.
On fly products, two rules from B+LNZ: use a different chemical to treat a strike than the one you use to prevent it, because over-reliance breeds resistance. And know the withholding period before you use it, not after.
📖 The full guide
There was more than fits in an email.
Which flies, the signs, the treatment steps and the other animals that can get struck are all in this week's Farm Guide: Flystrike on a small block: when it starts, how to spot it, and what to do. Free to read, no account needed.
📲 And where the app fits
Flystrike runs on a yearly clock.
That's exactly what memory is bad at. In My Block Hand, sheep have Shearing and Crutching / dagging as care types that come round again on their own. Fly strike treatment is a treatment type for one animal or the whole mob, and it records the product and works out when the withholding clears. Set a weekly trap check as a repeating job, and note the first week it catches flies. Next year you'll know your date.
🛠️ What's new
Everything we said was coming is now in.
It's live on the website and in the phone apps (version 1.5.13).
- Biosecurity and quarantine. Animals → 🛡️ Biosecurity & quarantine (it's in Flocks too). Start a quarantine the day new stock arrives and it counts the days on Today's Brief. MPI's advice for new birds is 14 days on their own. For sheep, cattle and goats, you set the days (your vet's number is the right one). There's also a short checklist that becomes your biosecurity plan.
- How many days of feed you've got left. If you record what you feed out, the Feed store tells you roughly how long it'll last at your usual rate, and when it'll run out.
- Your whole animal history in the spreadsheet. Settings → Export Excel now has sheets for treatments, health checks and weights, births, and breeding milestones.
- Missed egg days. If you forget to log a day, the egg calendar shows a grey estimate based on your flock's usual number, and your totals show both the logged figure and one counting the missed days. Tap the day to fill it in properly.
- Feed out from a herd. There's now a Feed out button on a herd's profile.
- Treatments. Pick a product and the withholding section opens, so you can see the days it filled in.
- Stay signed in on poor signal, and unsynced records are kept (the fix above).
- Edit pedigree works on phones. It was showing blank on small screens. Now the boxes show as one labelled list.
🔜 What's next: nothing we've promised is outstanding. What I'm thinking about next is garden and orchard, because a lot of you have them and we're starting a market garden here. If you grow fruit or vege, I'd love to hear what you'd want.
🗓️ On the block — mid October
Written from Northland; most of it travels, the dates shift with you.
- Sheep: crutching or shearing booked? Hang a fly trap in your worst paddock and check it weekly.
- Lambs and kids: the clostridial booster is the one that gets forgotten. Check yours is done or dated.
- Worms: young stock on spring pasture can scour quickly. Watch back ends, and test before you drench.
- Pasture: growth is flying. Shut up hay or silage paddocks now if you haven't, and keep the rest from getting away on you.
- Chooks: broody season. If you don't want chicks, lift her off the nest early.
- Water and shade: check both before the first properly hot week.
💡 A practical tip
Keep a list of the ones that get struck.
Every time you treat a strike, write down which sheep, where on the body, and the date. After a season or two a pattern shows up: the same few sheep, the same daggy back ends, the same paddock. Vets often suggest culling sheep that have been struck, and a list makes that an easy decision instead of a guess in the yards. It also tells you whether your prevention is working.
💬 A community question
When did the flies really turn up on your place last summer?
Do you actually know, or are you guessing? I'm guessing: "before Christmas" is the whole of what I remember. If you've got a real date, or you note it year to year, tell me where you are. If you get the Bulletin by email, just hit reply. I suspect the spread across the country is wider than the general advice suggests. If a few of you have real dates, I'll share the range in a future issue.