Dewormer Block

[mesa123]

Has anyone used one of these? Good or bad results? Seems to me it would be hard to know whether each animal had ingested the correct amount.

http://www.jefferslivestock.com/safe...I6-SQ/cn/3100/

[DWH Farm]

I have never used them but I would also be a little skeptical about the dosing.. Would definitely be easier I guess but I like to know what each animal is getting.

[MO_cows]

Same concern here. If you just have a couple of animals, everybody should get enough. But the more you have, the more the pecking order comes into play and the top animals could get an overdose while the low ranking ones get none, or not enough.

[genebo]

You can only be sure if you isolate the single animal and give it to him for the prescribed time. Even then, the wormers in the block may not be the best available.

I bought one of them several years ago, read the instructions, and gave it away. Then I bought the pour-on wormers that my county agent recommended.

I only have about a dozen cattle and they're so tame that I can pour the wormer on in a few minutes. I measure it by weight, so each one gets the right amount. Nothing worse than giving too light a dose.

[Oxankle]

The generic Ivermectins have gotten so cheap that there is little concern about precise measurements. The dosage is by weight, so I pour out the correct dose for the animal I'm treating, pour in a little extra and let 'em have it.

This would not work for a rancher with 300 cows, where a "little extra" would mount up fast but it works fine for a fellow with a small herd.

I stay away from the blocks for the same reasons as stated above.

[genebo]

The worm eggs come out in the cow's manure and hatch. They spend some time in the ground, then climb up on grass stems to be ingested by the cow and re-infest her.

The worms can only climb a few inches up the grass stem before drying out. If your cows are rotated often enough to only eat the grass down to about 6" tall, your worm problems will be reduced.

Goats also have worms, but they are different worms. When a goat eats your cow's worms, it simply kills the worms. The same thing happens in reverse. Cows kill goat worms. So running the two on the same pasture helps cut down the worm load for both species.

Ducks, guineas and chickens will all eat cow worms and worm eggs. My Muscovy ducks are the best at it. They follow the cattle all over the pasture, just waiting for some manure to go through.

Soon, we're going to have to employ these methods plus every other method to fight the worms. With every use of a chemical wormer, the surviving worms reproduce, making more worms that are hard to kill with that wormer. One day, all our chemical wormers will be ineffective. Lots of them already are. That's why there are so many.

Here's hoping they'll come up with a new chemical or a better way to fight the worms before all the worms become resistant.

[agmantoo]

Rotational grazing goes a long ways to break the cycle pf parasites life cycles. I have not wormed the entire herd in at least 3 years. If I have a single animal that looks unthrifty I will worm it as an individual.

[genebo]

Our graziers' club showed us what one man did with rotational grazing. He divided his pasture into 12 paddocks. He kept his stock on each paddock for 3 days. By the time the stock returned to the first paddock, the worm cycle had passed.

He used no chemical wormers during the experiment and had very low worm loads.

My friend developed a highly worm tolerant herd of Kiko goats by refusing to use a wormer at all. At first, a lot died. The survivors reproduced. Some of them died. After a few years, all of his herd was highly resistant to worms. They win awards in weight gain trials while carrying the highest worm loads of any. He still refuses to use any wormer, under any circumstance.

Guess what? Word got around and his goats are in great demand. He sells them as fast as he can raise them.

Breeds are important, too. Some goat breeds are very worm tolerant while some are notoriously susceptible. Surely cattle are the same. Does anyone have an idea which breeds are most tolerant? Agmantoo, which breed are you having such good success with?

Worms are big news in the livestock world. The person that comes up with a reliable way to defeat the worms will be a great asset to us all.