Liver fluke: The advice from the Department’s liver fluke forecast recommends treating outwintered sheep that are likely to face a liver fluke challenge in November, January and April. Farms with a history of serious liver fluke burden will need to treat more regularly and possibly as often as every four to six weeks in the worst affected cases.

In such a scenario, a treatment programme should be put in place with your vet to ensure adequate cover is provided and the risk of resistance developing is minimised by careful product selection. At present, product choice should still focus on treating mature and at least immature fluke stages. Avoid using combination products unless there is an identified need for treatment. Healthy ewes do not require treatment for worms.

Once sheep have been housed for 10 weeks, it opens up the opportunity of selecting a product that targets only mature fluke parasites. Producers drafting sheep for slaughter should continue to make optimum use of this information source and request some feedback on the health of livers.

Straw supply check: The earlier than planned housing on some farms will have led to higher volumes of straw being used than initially planned and could potentially leave supplies tight where a buffer has not been built into the system. As such, it is important to check supplies promptly to allow plenty of time to replenish supplies if needed, or put alternative plans in place to conserve existing supplies.

As a rule of thumb, a 4X4 round bale of straw weighing in the region of 140kg will typically bed 18 to 20 lowland ewes (require 7kg straw/hd to absorb all urine) or 30 to 35 hill ewes (require 4kg to 5kg straw/hd) per week. This requirement is for ewes fed silage and can be reduced by 20% to 30% for ewes fed hay or high dry matter silage/haylage.

Remember also to make an allowance when calculating for straw required for lambing pens. Teagasc guidelines advise that in the region of four to five round bales will be required for every 100 ewes in a system targeting a quick turnout post-lambing of 24 to 36 hours.

Biosecurity measures: Farmers purchasing foster ewes or pet lambs need to be mindful of biosecurity risks and take the necessary precautions to prevent disease from entering the flock. If purchasing, animals must be isolated on arrival to the farm and remain quarantined until such time that any risk of spreading disease has passed.

Purchased animals should also be clearly marked so that they can be identified for sale at a later stage. This is especially important in the case of foster ewes with an unknown background, as abortion-causing agents could be responsible for the loss.

Enzootic abortion is one of the major threats to watch out for, and as there are no visual warning signs, a good quarantine programme is essential. In-lamb ewes should be lambed where at all possible in a separate area, unless there is a robust background history and you are confident no risks are present.

While on the topic of abortion, any case should be treated as a potential outbreak and investigated. Alarm bells should sound if the incidence reaches 3%.