Animal Health

Managing Animal Health

As part of our offerings, the MacKinnon Project has a relatively large amount of experience in managing health issues of livestock most, especially cattle and sheep. As part of our animal health services, we ensure that we provide a full breakdown of all that is wrong with the animal’s health. Of course, this particular service is fully backed up by Disease Control and Pathology services of the veterinary faculty at Melbourne’s’ University.

You will find below some vital information on the common diseases in livestock, mainly sheep and cattle.

Sheep Diseases include Lice, Fleece Rot, Internal parasites, Footrot, etc. Cattle Diseases include Intestinal parasites, Bloat, and Pestivirus.

Cattle Diseases

If there any parasite that is quite common in cattle, it’s definite worms. The small brown stomach worm is the main cause of diseases and death in cattle in South-eastern Australia. It is otherwise known as Ostertagia Ostertagi. It is largely responsible for production losses of cargoes due to worm infections.

Of course, various other types of worm acts as parasites in cattle, such as Stomach hairworm, intestinal worms, Barbers’ pole worm, etc. These worms especially are known to cause so many diseases, especially because they suck blood.

There are some key distinctions in worm infections that affect the sheep and the cattle. These distinctions are

  • The species that worm infection affects in both sheep and cattle are different.
  • For cattle, the brown stomach worm takes effect in the stomach wall. It is also most effective during the late summer, spring and then eventually develops in the autumn.
  • In most cases, adult cattle have good resistance to worms. So, they mostly don’t need time to time treatment except in certain periods, such as areas with high rainfall.

Control of Cattle Infections

In controlling and managing cattle infections, there are strategic steps that you can take. Some of them include.

  • Reducing the contamination of pasture with worm eggs, especially in favourable conditions such as springs and autumn.
  • At all costs, avoid feeding young cattle in areas with high contamination of worm eggs and larvae. 

Sheep Diseases

Footrot

This is an extremely infectious disease commonly found in sheep. It is a bacterium that affects the sheep’s feet and results in serious pain and, at times, lameness of the sheep.

This disease can have a large negative impact on the flock’s productivity and eventually cause a reduction in wool production. This disease mostly thrives in moist areas and can live on for a long time in affected animals. However, once they are outside the foot, they cannot survive beyond seven days.

Smart Grazing

This is an innovative and novel way of ensuring control of worms in weaker sheepskin during the winter. Smart grazing can be an effective means of negating sheepskin grazing consequences in the summer, thus reducing the summer treatment strategy effectiveness. This smart grazing strategy has not been examined for areas in rainfall.