🌱 This week at Red Ants Farm
One scouring lamb, and the drench question.
This week I noticed one of our lambs scouring, and the first thing I thought was: is it time for their first drench?
Everyone says test first. To be honest, I've always put it off. It sounds expensive, it sounds like a job, and I didn't even know where you'd get one done. On top of that, we've had Barber's pole on this property before, so I don't like guessing.
So this week I went and found out properly. Here's what I learned.
🐑 This week's topic
Scouring lambs and the first drench.
A scouring lamb isn't proof of worms. Scouring can be a sign of worms, but it's one of the later signs (Beef + Lamb NZ's Wormwise handbook). Lush spring grass can do it on its own, and the November tips from NZ Lifestyle Block point out that diarrhoea may be rich pasture rather than parasites. One mucky tail on its own doesn't tell you much.
Barber's pole usually doesn't scour at all. This surprised me. Barber's pole is a blood-sucker, so the signs are anaemia, not a dirty back end. Totally Vets lists them as a lamb with no energy that can't keep up, often sitting down when the mob is moved, breathing fast and shallow, or found collapsed. VetEnt adds pale gums and eyelids and sometimes bottle jaw (a soft swelling under the jaw). So if you're worried about Barber's pole, the scouring lamb is the wrong lamb to look at. Look at the ones lagging behind.
The free check: pull down the eyelid. The pink lining under the lower eyelid should be salmon pink. With a heavy Barber's pole burden it can go "ghostly white" (Totally Vets). It takes two seconds and costs nothing. Don't go by the gums on lambs, as they often look pale even when healthy.
When Barber's pole hits. Wormwise puts the danger period at late summer and autumn, and says it's more of a problem in the warmer parts of the North Island and the top of the South. Totally Vets says the odd case turns up before Christmas, and outbreaks tend to follow rain or heavy dew after a hot, dry spell. So right now is the time to find out where you stand, before the risky months.
Should you drench before weaning? Beef + Lamb NZ says a pre-weaning drench may do little for lamb growth where the ewes lambed in good condition, though it can help after drought or weeks of wet. They also flag late-spring drenching as a risk for drench resistance. That's the case for testing first: a low egg count means you can skip a drench you didn't need, and a very high one this early is a warning sign for Barber's pole.
🧪 How to actually get a test done
Ring your vet clinic. Most do faecal egg counts (FECs). Ask what it costs, and ask whether they can do a larval culture too. That's the test that tells you which worms are there, Barber's pole included. Wormwise notes it takes 10 to 14 days.
Collect from about 10 lambs. Wormwise says at least 10 individual samples are needed for a meaningful result for the mob. Take about a tablespoon each, fresh (still warm), one per freezer bag or pottle. Early morning is easiest, when they get up and go.
Keep them in the fridge, not the freezer, and get them to the clinic the same day or the next.
Keep the samples separate. Wormwise prefers individual samples, and says to let the lab mix equal amounts if they're pooling.
If you do drench. Beef + Lamb NZ says to use a product that's been shown to work on your farm in the last 12 months, then do a 10-day drench check: 10 fresh samples, 10 days after drenching, to see if anything survived. VetSouth's advice for anyone who hasn't tested their drench is to use a triple drench and follow up with that check. Wormwise gives 28 days as the usual minimum between drenches for young stock. Weigh before you dose, because guessing low is how resistance gets a start. Your vet is the right person for which product, especially if you've had Barber's pole before.
📖 The full guide
There was more than fits in an email.
The signs, the eyelid check, taking samples and drenching properly are all in this week's Farm Guide: Scouring lambs, the first drench and Barber's pole: what to check before you drench. Free to read, no sign-up.
📲 And where the app fits
Weights in, dose checked, next round booked.
Weigh a few lambs and put the weights in. When you record the drench, add the product's label dose rate and the app checks each dose against the animal's last weight. For a group it uses the heaviest. The withholding date goes on automatically. Set the treatment to Repeat every 28 days if you're on a programme, and the next one books itself as a job. When the egg count comes back, add it as a dated note across the whole mob, so next spring you can see what this spring looked like.
🛠️ What's new
Contacts, yard sheets and much faster herds.
All of this is live on the website. The phone apps get it in the next updates.
- Contacts. Buyers, vets, AI techs, stock agents and shearers in one place. Search, filter by role, and tap a number to ring it. Their names come up when you type a buyer in Sell animals, and in Finances.
- Printable yard and weigh sheets. Print a list straight from the animals table, filtered by species, herd, sex or paddock, with blank rows at the bottom. Or copy it as a table.
- Download all your photos and documents in one go, as a zip sorted into folders by animal and section (website only).
- Classes for young stock. Heifer calf and bull calf, ewe lamb and ram lamb, doe kid and buck kid, filly and colt, and more, so the sex is right from day one.
- Big herds open much faster. A breeder with nearly 500 animals told us a herd took nearly a minute to open on his computer. We found the cause: it now takes well under a second.
- Sold and died is searchable, with species filters, and pedigree-only animals (ones that were never on your farm) now sit in their own group.
- Your farm stays on your phone. If you open the app with no signal, your records are still there, and they sync when you're back in range.
- Days of feed left for your flock, worked out from how fast you've been going through it.
- Soil tests show on a planting, so the garden bed or orchard row shows its latest test.
🔜 What's next: we're still working through the list from the breeder who switched over. If there's something you keep working around, tell me. If you get the Bulletin by email, just hit reply.
🗓️ On the block — November
Written from Northland; most of it travels, the dates shift with you.
- Lambs and kids: NZ Lifestyle Block's November tips give rough growth targets of about 300 g a day for lambs and 100 to 200 g a day for kids, depending on breed. One that isn't growing is the one to check for worms.
- Calves: around 1 kg a day or more, depending on breed. Dehorn, vaccinate and castrate if you haven't.
- Shearing: book the shearer now. Teaming up with a neighbour makes a small job more worth their while.
- Feet: wet spring ground brings scald and footrot. Check anyone limping.
- Flies: keep checking for flystrike as it warms up.
- Pigs for Christmas: book the butcher now, and check any wormer's withholding against your kill date.
💡 A practical tip
Get the weeds while they're small.
PGG Wrightson's advice is simple: treat weeds while they're small. Small weeds die with the softer, clover-friendly sprays. Leave them, and you need harsher chemistry that can set your clover back, and the big weed leaves a bigger bare patch for next year's weeds to move into. Californian thistle is the hard one, because it spreads by creeping roots. If you're going spray-free, the same rule holds: a small weed is a much easier job with a grubber than a big one.
💬 Your turn
Do you test before you drench?
If you do, where do you get it done, and roughly what does it cost? I'll share what comes back (no names unless you say so), because I suspect plenty of us are in the same boat I was. If you get the Bulletin by email, just hit reply.