Sheep Flystrike

Sheep Flystrike

Flystrike occurs when the sheep blowfly Lucilia cuprina lays eggs in any moist area on a sheeps wool. When conditions are right and susceptible sheep present, low number of blowflies can cause extensive flystrike. Individual risk of flystrike for sheep is variable but can include – sheep breed, wool type, wool length, wrinkle fold, time since last shearing or crutching and last chemical prevention.

The ideal conditions for the blowfly involve warm, humid weather. Blowflies don’t like windy, cold, or too hot condition.

We treat flystruck sheep with 5 main steps:

1.     Shear the struck wool until you have a 5 cm barrier of clean wool around the area of strike, as close to the skin as possible.

2.     Collect the infected wool and place it in a plastic back and leave in the sun for a few days to kill all the maggots.

3.     Apply a registered flystrike dressing to the shorn area to prevent re-strike. The flystrike dressing has two purposes- to kill remaining maggots and to prevent re-strike as the affected area is drying and healing.

4.     Remove struck sheep from the mob, and place into a hospital paddock. This does two things – reduced blowflies in the rest of the mob, and allows close monitoring of the affected sheep as it recovers.

5.     Cull struck sheep from breeding programs – susceptibility to flystrike is heritable and repeatable.

How do we reduce the risk of flystrike?

-       Choose shearing and crutching times to reduce flystrike risk

-       Jetting and spray-on treatments to reduce risk

-       Worm and dag management

-       Optimise tail length

After more information? Have a chat to one of our vets or check out https://flyboss.com.au