Bronllwyd Fawr Project Update: Sustainable options for managing lameness and reducing antibiotic usage in an intensive lowland sheep flock – May 2021
A visit was carried out by project vet, Joe Angell, Wern Vets during March 2021 as a follow-up to the first visit carried out during November 2020. The objective of the visit was to review the actions and data collected and make adjustments as necessary.
Project progress
On 2 December 2020, 300 Suffolk cross ewes were pregnancy scanned and 32 ewes were segregated due to showing clinical signs of lameness. These ewes were housed in a separate pen and Bimoxyl LA was administered to each ewe on this date. From this day onwards, they were also put through the footbath every day.
On 6 December 2020, 20 of the lame ewes were injected again with Bimoxyl LA. From this day forward, ewes were put through the footbath (containing Formalin) every three days. Five days later, 10 of the lame ewes were injected again with Bimoxyl LA.
On 20 December 2020, an additional 268 Suffolk cross ewes were housed. These ewes were given the Footvax vaccine on 9 January 2021. From this date onwards, ewes were put through the footbath three times per week (Formalin), and whilst they were in the handling pens, lime was put down in their pens inside with the objective of drying the bedding.
As a result of implementing strict measures to reduce lameness incidence as stated above, lameness prevalence has reduced from 8-10% to 2% since the project began in November 2020. It was also reported that more lambs were born and fewer abortions were recorded due to better lameness management overall.
It was also noted that isolating lame ewes from the unaffected ones during housing, and at pasture has been successful to help limit the spread of infection.
Recommendations for future practice:
Below are a few points that could be considered moving forward in order to prevent further incidences of lameness and in order to improve recovery rates.
- Check the dose of antibiotic injection used. Take care to administer enough antibiotic based on the weight of the sheep to be treated. Avoid underdosing.
- Bimoxyl LA can be repeated after 2 days (48 hours) where necessary. Repeat dosing later than this interval i.e. 3-6 days could lead to less successful treatment in that it may give time for the bacteria to re-multiply due to a decrease in blood concentration. Less successful treatment is likely to lead to more antibiotic use overall and more cost, together with a slower return to production.
- At lambing time, use one of the lambing pens as a ‘lame pen’ in order to help isolate the affected ewes, similarly to what is being done when the sheep are at pasture. This will limit infection spreading to other sheep and reduce contamination of the other pens with bacteria that could lead to infection. Putting lime down on bedding is also beneficial in this instance.
- Consider using the Footvax vaccine again in the ewes after shearing and again at scanning time. The antibodies against footrot tend to last around 5-6 months so boosters may be useful in keeping the antibody numbers high.
- Ensure lame ewes are marked in such a way as to be able to identify them again later, particularly when considering whether they will be culled out (those that have had more than one case of lameness in the last year). It is likely that problem ewes would be culled out at weaning time.
Next steps…
The next step of the project is to consider the trace element status of the flock. This will involve blood sampling ewes after weaning and determining if further supplementation is required in plenty of time ahead of the tupping season.