This is the sort of science an independent research body should be doing, as farmers have little chance of evalulating the correct product to use against a barrage of marketing claims and incentives to purchase.
Farmers have been attracted to the easy to use pour on and injectable products, but it appears they may not be as effective as their makers claim.
A lack of independent trials is also an issue in grass cultivar evaluation and often products are marketed by an association with high profile farmers endorsing the product.
True and extensive independent trials are what is needed if the correct choice is to be made for what will be a big cost and medium to long term investment.
Do you feel confused by choice when looking for a product to do the job and should we ask an independent research body to do more evaluations so farmers can make the right choices based on science, not marketing incentives, as is the case in many products now?
A new study by AgResearch scientists shows oral cattle drenches are far more effective than the equivalent pour-on or injectable products.
In a study soon to be published in the international science journal Veterinary Parasitology, AgResearch scientists Chris Miller and Dave Leathwick measured how effective the same drench active (moxidectin) was when given orally, as a pour-on or as an injectable. They conducted trials on 14 farms throughout NZ, and say while pour-ons and injectables are easier to use, they do not deliver the same benefits.
“Based on overseas data, I would not have been surprised if the pour-on product was generally less effective than the other two routes as there are issues with drug penetrating the skin and animals either licking the drug off their own backs or their neighbours,” says Dr Leathwick. “We also thought the oral drug would work pretty well, while injectable macrocyclic lactones (the drug family which includes moxidectin, ivermectin, abamectin etc.) are regarded as the gold standard when treating cattle parasites on a global basis.”
He says when the results were analysed, the study confirmed how ineffective the pour-on product was, reducing the number of worm eggs shed in faeces by only around 50%. “What came as a surprise, however, was that the injectable product performed no better than the pour-on. In comparison, the much cheaper oral product reduced worm egg output by over 90%.”
The parasite surviving treatment was predominantly Cooperia, which on most farms showed a level of resistance to these drugs. However, this was not always the case and the presence of resistance does not explain the difference between the routes of administration.
“What we have already proven is that using drugs with higher efficacy against worms lifts animal productivity, while killing more worms by using an effective drench reduces the selection pressure for resistance to develop, promoting the sustainability of worm control."Dr Leathwick says follow-up studies have confirmed that this is not unique to moxidectin and that other pour-on and injectable products were no more effective.
“The next steps are to repeat the study against different worm species and also develop techniques to measure drug concentrations in the tissues where the worms live.” He says there is four to five years of research ahead to determine whether the research findings apply equally to all worm species, and to assess the likely implications for long-term, effective worm control should farmers continue to use pour-on or injectable products.
8 Comments
Big sigh..........This has got to be the biggest rort ever on the worlds livestock farmers. Personally I am disgusted in the current crop of vets who will NOT stock Levamisole based products as a sole ingredient. And we know why dont we.
Yes, it is the cheapest and most effective drench against cooperia, and therefore the vets dont make much money out of it. Instead they actively promote all the other combinations of snakeoil, for which their markup keeps them in clover.
To this list of shady characters would be the likes of Farmlands RD1 and PGGwrightson.
Belle, its a an old rort but a beauty. I had an independent test for worms and clear drenchs came out on top for Cooperia which knocks weight gain around. Ostertagia was better with a white drench. I told all the locals but why would you listen to me over your vet/ farmlands rep? I was spending 9k a year on injectables and cut it back to about 2k.
I got onto it because a friend had a girl friend working at Massey, she told me one night that they were doing trials for Ivomec at the time, they compared ivomec to clear drenchs but only at the optimal time for Ivomec efficiency, the cost difference was huge but clear drenchs came out on top when they gave an extra drench but that was hushed up as Ivomec were paying for the research. And you think men dont listen to women, we may look blank but we are processing it all.
I hear HB is dry hows are things up your way?
We got good rain last week Andrew. Plenty of feed. Just drenched all the calves today. Levicare. When I tried to track down a drum of the stuff last year, I couldnt find any. I could not find a single, levamisol product, not a combo, in two of the closest towns to me. Each merchandise or vet clinic advised me to combo drench them. ( at twice the cost) or use dectomax (quadruple??) I threw down the gauntlet at one clinic and demanded why were they were trying to sell me products that were simply wrong for what I wanted. A dectomax salesman came out of the office...I didnt know he was there.... and proceeded to give me the spiel. I told him to stick his shit up his ass...well perhaps it was slightly less obnoxious than that.
So the short of it was, the clinic ordered some in specially for me....They will not stock it.
This year in their monthly newsletter they acknowledged pourons were not working, and that injectables or combos should be used. A small step...
I use to do a lot of grazing, all the dairy cockies were using dectomax on the calves before they came to me. Waste of time. But they couldnt be told. Who would listen to a woman, rather than a vet ...lol
The ironic bit, it was a dectomax salesman that told me to stick with Levamisole for cooperia. And a very young vet who's mother was a 'drench scientist,' she said her mum was beside herself that we had normalised using combination drenches.
Belle, I had an old friend who worked for the Colonial Office. He told me that in the 50's they were doing research into alternative grasses in Africa they tried tabacco because it grows like a weed, if you can grow Cauliflower you can grow tabacco. Anyway what he told me was that while tabacco was not a success as a pasture crop, it did bowl worms as did any of the plants with high tannins, after a day on Tabacco the worms leave. Hmmm, even then he told me it wasn't the result wanted by those upstairs so was buried. He also thought our Fetiliser industry was a massive fraud.
You want to ask him about the racket in grasses, why have we not moved to grasses that thrive in lower P soils? We hammer ryegrasses that need a lot of fert and a lot of care but that make someone else a fortune.
Brace yourself
The fiscal policy outlook constitutes a major negative for the NZD
J.P. Morgan forecasts the NZ budget deficit to come in at an unsustainable 4.4% of GDP in 2013 (down only 0.3 ppts from 2012).
Table 7 shows that NZ’s 2013 budget deficit is expected to be four times larger than Australia’s and even worse than Europe’s. However, NZ is gearing up for a serious spell of fiscal tightening, with the worst part of austerity set to bite in 2014 (chart 23).
The government is bravely projecting a return to surplus in 2015, but the risks seem skewed to significantly later.
Regardless, government spending is projected to decline for several more years, constituting a major headwind to growth through at least 2015. However, such aggressively contractionary policy is required to prevent further downgrades by the rating agencies.
Further, it seems quite possible that such aggressive fiscal tightening will provide the RBNZ with a convenient excuse to postpone hikes well beyond H2 of 2013. With reconstruction-driven domestic growth expected to beat the rest of the developed world (especially in 1H2013), inflation projected to remain within the RBNZ’s target band, dairy output remaining firm, and the housing market starting to lift, what are the key downside risks facing New Zealand’s economy?
The largest challenges flow from the various imbalances, which make this small open economy particularly vulnerable to shocks, while also limiting productivity growth.
New Zealand’s private sector debt is three times what is was in 1998, while net international liabilities continue to be unsustainably high (70% of GDP). Additionally, private investment opportunities in New Zealand’s traded sector are less scalable compared to its neighbour Australia, since the main industry – agriculture – is decentralized and labour intensive, which makes it less expandable than for example, mining in Australia.
Paired with the debt-overhang of the farming sector, these dynamics constrain development of the traded sector and ultimately reign in productivity growth. This dynamic is exacerbating the growth/inflation trade-off, keeping interest rates higher than they otherwise would be.
However, amidst an environment where there are few highrated sovereigns left to buy with high yields, continued demand for the government sector is keeping the currency overvalued according to most metrics.
Given this difficult mix of growth, inflation, interest rates, currency, and imbalances, we believe the newly-appointed RBNZ Governor Wheeler will opt to keep the cash rate on hold at the historical low of 2.50% until September 2013, at which point he will likely opt for a 25bp hike. The risk to this forecast is that rates are on hold for longer than we currently project.
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