My recommendations are:

• Under no circumstances should turf seed be used for forage plantings.

• Under no circumstances should livestock be allowed access to existing turf – especially if it is perennial ryegrass or tall fescue (including lawns, waste areas around buildings, and roadsides).

• Under no circumstances should hay from tall fescue or ryegrass turf be fed to livestock (ergovaline remains viable in turf)

• Under no circumstances should ryegrass or tall fescue sod be added to cages from show livestock (and if you can't identify these species – then don't add any sod!)

[top] Pasture Management Strategies to Minimize Internal Parasite Burdens of Sheep and Goats - Clif Little, Extension Educator, Guernsey County

Sheep and goat producers have faced a couple of difficult years when it comes to internal parasite control. Weather conditions have been great for parasite larvae survival. When you couple great survival of these parasite larvae on pasture with drug resistance we have a very serious problem. Fortunately, we do have some pasture management strategies that can help to minimize larvae contamination and the use of de-wormers.

Making it tough for parasites to survive on pasture is one of the goals. Most of the internal parasites we are concerned with do not survive extreme weather for long periods very well. How can you use this in your pasture management program? Consider when ewes or nannies will give birth. Fecal egg output on pastures increases shortly before lambing or kidding and continues to remain high through peak lactation. We have demonstrated this increase in shedding at the Eastern Ohio Agricultural Research Station (EARS) in Belle Valley. We lamb on pasture at this location in April and May. Therefore, our lambing pasture is heavily contaminated. How should this pasture be managed to minimize survival of internal parasite larvae?

Here are a couple of strategies we can use:

1) If we need to use a de-wormer, we will use an effective product, i.e. one confirmed to work through fecal egg counting measurements. Once we treat animals regardless of the product used we will keep the animals on this pasture for at least two weeks longer. The idea is that the larvae surviving drug treatment (i.e. resistant parasites) will be dumped back on the contaminated pasture and then consumed along with non-resistant parasites so we avoid moving resistant parasites to a clean pasture. This practice may help to minimize resistant worms breeding to resistant worms and assures at least some of the drug resistant worms will mate with non-resistant parasites. In addition to this practice we will utilize a selective de-worming program in which we will only de-worm a few females which are mixed with untreated females. We will utilize FAMACHA© to determine our selective treatments.

2) Once we are finished with our lambing pasture, we could do a couple of things to further reduce parasite burdens. We could allow the pasture to re-grow and graze the pasture with cattle throughout the summer. In addition, we could cut these pastures for hay and expose the parasites to the hot and dry weather of July and August before grazing again in the fall. Another option would be to plant the pastures to an annual crop which could be cut for hay or grazed. At the research station the latter would not be an option for us, but it is something for producers to consider. Some producers may have low-risk animals which could graze behind lactating ewes, i.e. wethers or dry ewes. When we do move our females we will move them to a clean pasture. This pasture will be one in which sheep haven’t been for approximately one year. This should allow us to minimize or eliminate the use of anathematics until weaning.

3) Once the lambs are weaned we will move them to a field which was utilized for hay production. When convenient in the fall, these lambs will return to our lambing paddocks and start the finishing phase. The use of a feed supplement has proven to create great resilience to internal parasites. At EARS, lambs not de-wormed and supplemented on pasture in the fall, October through December, have gained as well as lambs which were de-wormed and supplemented.

Throughout the grazing season we will avoid over grazing. We will leave more forage residual when moving females (4-5 inches of pasture growth and move). The idea is that the closer the animals graze the more parasites they consume.

Over time we will manage our grazing area so as to prepare for areas of “safe pasture”. We will do this by utilizing cattle grazing traditional sheep paddocks and cutting paddocks for hay and resting these areas for approximately a year before returning sheep to the paddock. We also have available a dry lot if necessary. This is a heavy use pad in which we can feed lambs and ewes. The heavy use pad is a safety valve that allows us to take sheep off pasture if we feel we have no clean areas for them to graze. Some producers may use annual crops such as oats, annual ryegrass, etc. to help clean old pastures. By cultivating fields and planting crops worm burdens can be greatly reduced.

We hope that by sharing our pasture management plan you may have thought about yours. We should also note that this is just part of a plan. Our veterinarians will work with us on the judicial use of our anathematics.