The importance of facial eczema testing

Monitor the performance of your stock and the drenches you use

Regular monitoring of multiple mobs for worms is important, particularly in growing youngsters lacking developed immunity to parasites, or alternatively when planning the allotment of spring grazing areas for ewes pregnant with multiple lambs. Ideally test with FECPAK prior to giving any drench treatment to determine if required, and then 7-14 days after a drench treatment is given to check how well it worked, and then again regularly to assess whether a future drench is indicated. Over time, collecting your property’s own test data helps gather vital information for you and helps you optimally steward the effective drench actives suitable for use in your situation. Understanding these simple yet profoundly important keys can help you unlock and harvest nutrition’s golden benefits, while improving your bottom line and productivity.

Facial eczema

Facial eczema (FE) is a disease of pasture grazing livestock (apart from horses) which damages the liver, caused by the fungal mycotoxin sporidesmin, and whose unwelcome presence is chiefly felt during warm humid summer and autumn weather. Affected animals may exhibit a range of skin photosensitivity symptoms, poorer productive performance, or they may die. The disease can be considerably painful, resulting in a significant adverse animal welfare impact.

As facial eczema has no treatment, prevention is crucial. Regular and ongoing monitoring of facial eczema spore counts trending on your property is key, identified through testing pasture or dung samples. Pasture spore counts show a potential consumption while faecal spore counts confirm the actual spore numbers ingested one to two days prior to sampling. Faecal spore counts are especially useful for detecting earlier than expected rising spore counts from November onwards, and also at the tail end of the season to help inform when zinc treatments for facial eczema can be stopped. Knowing when to stop zinc supplementation can be as important as knowing when to start. Fonterra offers dairy suppliers a bulk milk facial eczema test (ZincCheck), which assesses if herd zinc supplementation is adequate for protection, complementing blood tests and pasture spore counts to managing the disease.

Always consult your animal health professional for specific advice relevant to your livestock and property grazing situation. You should also refer to industry information and guidelines for other recommended actions available, to safeguard your livestock against facial eczema. Because FE has no cure, dosing livestock with zinc when spore counts are at toxic levels helps to mitigate the disease. Farmlands offers a range of zinc products, including zinc sulphate for water dosing, zinc oxide for oral drenching and in feed, or intraruminal zinc boluses. FE risk and zinc treatment levels vary from farm to farm and season to season, so make sure you discuss your FE treatment programme with your local animal health professional.

FECPAK

FECPAK can test livestock faecal matter, from ruminant animals like cattle and sheep, to horses, alpacas, and goats. The kit includes everything required to collect the sample, test options (parasites in faecal egg counts or exposure to facial eczema spores), courier pack to send the sample off to the lab and the price includes one lab test. The results are emailed with an interpretation guide explaining the result. FECPAK test kits are available in-store and on FarmlandsPRO.