February 17, 2025 • 21 mins
Internal parasites and drench resistance are serious threats to livestock production. In part two of our series, The Country’s Rowena Duncum is joined by B+LNZ’s Wormwise Programme Manager Ginny Dodunski to look at all aspects of the programme – from its conception through to report findings, plus practical messages for farmers.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Insights on Parasites with Beef and Lamb, New Zealand,
powered by the Country.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, Hello and welcome into episode two Insights on Parasites
and Association with Beef and Lamb, New Zealand. This is
as I mentioned in our second episode, we caught up
with doctor Susie Keeling last week. Today I'm joined by
Jenny Dedanski, Wormwais Program Manager. Hello, Jenny, welcome in, Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Right, and thanks so much for having me. I always
enjoy having these conversations.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, absolutely, I come away from it feeling like I've
learnt something, so that's always a bonus as well. Hey,
tell me a bit about your background and how you
came to be the Wormwais program Manager.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, sure, thank you. So I was a production animal
vet mostly sheet and beef for sort of twenty four
or five years or so before taking on that role.
I've been really, really fortunate in my early career to
work with Trevor Kok, who many of your listeners will know,
and it was at a time where we had lots
(01:02):
of scope and money to do big projects on monitor
farms and lots of trial work and stuff like that,
and a lot of that involved parasites. So I've always
been really involved with how we can better set up
our farm systems to make parasites less of an issue.
(01:23):
And the neat thing about that is the production benefits
from that are usually really big too, so it's a
win win. And so when this worm Wise program manager
role came up, I thought, Oh, I can't let someone
else do that.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
I do that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
So I put my name in Manhattan and I.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Was really really stoked.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Then Bryer at Beef and then gave me the job.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So I am absolutely And what part of New Zealand
are you based in, Jenny.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I'm in the central North Island. I'm down the south
end of Lake Topo, and we are very dry here
at the moment. Just having a meeting with some other
vets from around the country this morning, and everybody else
was talking about how great it is and we're not. Yeah,
we would like a tropical subtropical low to came and
dump some rain on us here at the moment.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
A couple of weeks ago, I flew in for the
summer concert series and I remember saying on the radio
the next day, look, they need rain here, and then
the rain needs rain, and then that follow up rain
needs follow up rain, and then that needs follow up
rain and so on. Like, it's not something that's going
to correct itself overnight.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
No, we need looking at our soil moisture in the
rainfall that we've had since about November. We actually need
a good hundred miles here to set things right again.
So we really need to start making some dry planning decisions,
if not making them, already making them this week.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, Well I'll be doing my rain dance
for you probably I reckon for about the next six
weeks to two months.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
We'll look forward to that.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Oh absolutely, Look, Jenny, tell me about the womb program.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, So the Wollomwise program sprung up out of a
big national survey that was done on drench resistance back
in the early two thousands, and you know the results
from that survey deck at that time seemed quite scary
in terms of the amount of drench resistance that was about.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
On farms and roomwives.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Was supposed to be an initiative that was a various groups.
MPI originally funded it through the Sustainable Farming Fund A FANS,
who are the association that represent drench sales and manufacture.
The Veterinary Association, Beef and LAMB, who are the sole
funder of it now, and also Dairy and Z and
(03:43):
Deer industry are all you know, all put input into
the program that. Yeah, as I say, Beef and LAMB
are the only ones funding it. Until I came on
as program manager, it was sort of a run by
committee thing that really needed some extra horsepower to get
the messages out better than what it was. It had
(04:06):
a very basic website that looked like it came from
nineteen ninety eight, and it had you know, we had
the wormise workshops and some printed material, but it was
pretty limited. And in some research that Beef and Lamb
did a couple of years ago looking at how farmers
want to get their information on parasites, one of the
clear messages from that was only about twenty five or
(04:30):
thirty percent of people actually want to go to a workshop.
So given that workshops were one of the main ways
of getting wormise information out, you know that it was
obviously never going to be super successful, so we needed
to change it up. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, well something you have definitely been able to sink
your teeth into. Jenny, You've been running this program as
you say, for a couple of years. Now, what are
the main things that wormisers focused on in that time,
and do you think it's actually starting to have an
impact next.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, I guess to start with, it was just really
directly trying to get in front of farmers as much
as possible. I had this grand vision that I could
go out to farmers that I knew who were doing
a really great job of managing wombs, and film these
really professional videos about what they were doing and put
it on social media. And I very quickly realized that my.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Budget does not stretch. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, so yeah, well you would know. So just that
just morphed into me getting my phone and going right,
I just need to start talking to people. So when
I look back on the early womb wise, you know,
social media videos, I realized I've learned quite a lot
about things like southeasticks and stands and things that are
not waving my phone around and everybody feels like they're
(05:44):
on in a ship in the sea. But yeah, I
think those that their early social media effort in terms
of just getting little videos out regularly, I think that
really helped. And then we you know, we also apped
our presence in the rural media the same time. It
took everything takes longer than I want. But you know,
(06:06):
we got a new website up and running last year
which is very very different from the old one, and yeah,
you know there's some really great resources on here. It's
very farm system focused, so you know, trying to make
the point that this is not just about the worm
life cycle and drench It is very much about how
do we set our systems up from the ground up
(06:27):
to make them least challenging to our animals with regard
to worms. So that that's been a big one. The
website build, that was a big lot of work. We
have increased the variety in spread of the worm wise
workshops that we do, sort of having ones like advanced
farm system workshops and kettle workshops and you know, just
(06:48):
whatever really is going to suit the people in that
district and the things that they.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Want to focus on.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
The other big one, too is what Beef and Land
like to call influencing the influencers, So recognizing that when
never use survey farm is about parasites and animal health,
they always say that they get most of their info
from their vets, and so really trying to focus on
you can't standardize people because you can't write people. You
(07:16):
can never standardize people, but at least trying to up
the level of advice decrease some of the inconsistency. That's
always been a big piece of feedback about parasites is
that you know, I can ask four different people and
get six different answers about the same thing. So we're
(07:36):
really really trying to help the vets out.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Both with workshops for vets.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Also we have an online discussion forum about parasites that
we've started for vets about eighteen months ago, and that
I need to go through and sort of counter up
all the activity that's been on that, But that's been huge,
and I quite often get feedback from vets when I
talk to them that I never I never post anything
on there because I'm too scared, but I'm reading it
(08:04):
all the time and and on that I'm really hastened by.
You know a lot of young vets or vets coming
from overseas who are prepared to post questions that are
quite basic.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But probably is that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Wondering that you know, probably there's there's two hundred other
people out there that probably wondering the same things. Yeah,
that's been great. And so I mean I to you
a question about the impact. I mean, I naively feel
like it is helping, but then I get brought down
to earth every so often by you know, something I'll
(08:36):
see on a on a farming page on Facebook or
something with some questions that that I think.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Are like, wow, that's either really basic.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Or you know, why are you asking that? And and
and also stories of you know, fans that are still
really really struggling with drench resistance and you know, availability
of product or you know, poor performance and things that
Obviously there are are groups of people out there who
are still aren't excessing the help and support that they
(09:09):
need to come out of these problems that they're having,
and I'd love to be able to help those people more.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, every chance I get to to get information out,
that's great. But in the end, farmers do need I find,
you know, some local support and local help, and maybe
that might be where some of the missing links are,
but we keep trying.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah. Absolutely, And look, speaking of drench resistance, when wise,
you've just released a report showing worrying levels of drench
resistance and cattle. Two where do you find what did
you find? And were too from here.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, that is a good question. We've been lucky in
New Zealand the last sort of four or five years
that one of the oratory providers a NUIs and also
check you on down and Dunedin have been putting out
sort of annual summaries of the status the state of
the nation, if you like, with regard to drench resistance
(10:11):
and sheep. So we've had a good hand on the
deterioration of that and the you know, probably everybody's said
somewhere that's found by the third of farms have got
triple drench resistance. But we really other than anecdote from
vets in the odd you know, wheels falling off, case
from car fearing properties or whatever, we haven't got that
(10:32):
data for Kettle until now.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
And when I call it data, this is I will admit.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It's pretty sketchy. What I did last year was I
went out to the vets on that online forum and said,
please send me your drench testing data that you've got,
and I also went out to other veterinarians that I
knew personally who collected some of this and asked them
to send it to me. So what we've got is
(10:59):
a collect of sixty nine individual what we call faker
wee coount reduction tests, which are a comprehensive test of
a particular drench. So fifty nine of those from sixteen
different kettle properties. So I admit it's not a proper
extensive national survey, but it does stretch the length of
(11:21):
New Zealand and I think it is pretty representative of
what's going on on young intensive kettle properties anyway. So
these are mostly dairy heifer blocks and bull beef blocks
that we've looked at. Here there was one farm in
the group that were a beef breeding farm, just cows
and calves, you know, mixed into a bigger system, and
(11:42):
that fam actually had no drench resistance. So I think
you probably are farm system differences with drench resistance and
kettle this would suggest. But anyway, we've got this data
and a what have we got? A sixty nine percent
of those fifty nine individual tests had some level of
resistance to some drench or other and that involved eighty
(12:05):
one percent of the farm, so you know, pretty extensive.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
We've got failure of.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Triple drench against one worm couperia in six out of
the eleven tests. And also very commonly used in young
cattle would be a combination of a netin drench and
of Amazon I won't name products because we try not
to do that on the radio. That year, twelve out
of the nineteen tests of those also showed resistance. So
(12:34):
I think, you know, we have these really worrying test
results and until now it's been kind of a sticking
point to get progress with other groups to help us
extend some of these worm wise messages. You know, when
you say to people, oh, we think there's quite a
lot of drench resistance in cattle in New Zealand, well,
(12:56):
you know the first response is show me the data.
So you know, as light as this data is in
terms of numbers, it paints a very clear picture. And
I have sent this out to dairy and z some
of the dairy companies. Yes, it's been pretty widely extended
in really getting some great interaction with them now in
(13:20):
terms of what can we do to help. So I
think in the next couple of years you will, as
if you're a cattle farmer, dairy grazer, you know, dairy farmer,
you'll probably start to see if you're not all reader,
you'll start to see some more information on this coming
through different channels rather than just from worm wise, because
we recognize that it as an industry problem, and particularly
(13:43):
in the dairy industry. You know, that challenge of growing
heath is out well, so that big robust cows when
they come into the herd, and then we get less
wastage of cows once they're in the herd. You know,
parasites are a big limiting factor on this, then we
really need to deal with that. So I think it
is an industry wide thing, and I'm hattened by the
(14:04):
responses I'm getting from the dairy industry.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, yeah. So often I hear about this collaboration from
cross sector departments and different organizations, and it always warms
my heart because you know, these aren't issues we're able
to tackle and address in isolation. The power of everyone
combined is what's going to actually see some improvement here
as well. Look, what are some practical messages you can
(14:28):
give firm as why they don't know if they have
drench resistance or already know they do, but are struggling
to see a way out.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Yeah cool.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
I mean, so the first group, which is probably the
biggest group, don't know whether or not we've got drench
resistant wounds that are going to at some point cause
a problem. The really simple message there is just do
some drench checks. A drench check is where you've drenched
your young calves or lambs with whatever your routine products
(14:57):
and somewhere in the range of one to two weeks,
and take some fresh fecal samples to your vet or
other laboratory provider and get them checked. If the drench
has worked really, really well, then there should be no
worm eggs in there. If it hasn't, then there'll be
plenty of worm eggs, and you may not see that
in your young stock at all at that point in
(15:19):
terms of performance. I just ran a drench check for
one of my own clients the other day, and based
on my advice, that used a certain product, and I thought, oh,
that'll be all right at this time of the year,
and yeah, these lands.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Were still what looked like full of worms.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
They're actually growing all right, thank goodness. But had we
gone on months after months using this product, then come
the autumn, this whole thing was going to tip over
with these resistant worms that we've been leaving behind in
the lambs and contaminating the pastures with even I can
mess this up, but I'm just so pleased that they're
(15:55):
in the process of regular monitoring.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
They did the.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Drench, we know it hasn't worked, so we can put
some mitigations in place and go, well, we're not going
to do that again this season away. Whereas if you're
just not looking, you will at some point some autumn
down the track, you're going to sleep walk into a problem.
That's what we have seen on these farms with sick
and dying lands in the last few years. And you know,
(16:18):
by the time you see those sick young animals, the
drenches are really almost completely failing. It's not sort of
a you know, you've got thirty percent of the eggs
left behind or something. You're actually not killing any worms
at all. So yeah, just that quick drench check enables
you to stop there at that stop sign if things
(16:40):
aren't going well and go, okay, which road are we
going to go down now?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And that's where you get your good local advice.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And I said to someone the other day, if this
is cattle and you're in a dairy area, it may
not be that your local vet has a lot to
do with parasite management, and if they're not comp thantil
happy advising you sort of where to from here, then
they should be able to either review you to somebody
else in their business or somebody else locally who can
(17:09):
help you more. And that may well be the vet
who deals with sheep farmers more often in your patch,
because they've probably been dealing with this issue for a
bit longer. So just some good, practical local help. And
then there's all this farm system stuff. So in terms
of you know, this is flowing onto your question about
people who are already struggling with drench resistance, and this
(17:31):
is probably more likely to be sheep farmers. I guess
the first thing to acknowledge is that there are no
quick fixes. And if you're one of those farms who
already feel like you're trapped in only being able to
use the most newest expensive drenches because the other ones
aren't working, that's only a short road to those other
(17:53):
drenches not working as well. So there's some real system
change that's required. But you do probably we need some
good help and support, and you also need to realize
that the winds aren't fast when you're doing this, so
it can take a good couple of years. Those areas
of the farm where you've had a lot of young
stock that might be quite heavily contaminated with worms. It
(18:17):
takes away while to unwind all that stuff with different
policy decisions, different grazing management, you know, different maybe crops
and things like that, but they're not you know, that's
not the way forward for every farm. It sounds like
a cliche, but every farm is different. Yeah, So the
advices get some good help and look at what are
the underlying factors in your farm that are driving that
(18:40):
high worm contamination and making use so reliant on drench
because in the end, we're not going to fix drench
resistance by throwing different or more drench at it. We
do need to work on our system and drop the
worm challenge. And that's not something I can necessarily give
people specific guidelines about on a podcast that that's the
(19:02):
underlying factor, is that dropping that womb challenge? So that's
a yeah, let's say that's something we need bespoke help with.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah. Yeah, So if people are interested, and you mentioned
you've given your website a bit of a up as well,
where can people go to find more information? Jinny?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, definitely. The worm Wise website is a really good
first place to start, you know, and if you're one
of those farmers that's already you know, we've got major
problems and we just want to jump to some solutions.
There are a couple of pages on their called Wounds
in your Farm System. There's wombs and kettle kettle systems
and wombs and cheap systems. Those might be quite a
(19:45):
good place to start, just to look at what am
I doing, what's the level of risk, what are some
suggestive mitigations to that? And then you can and there
are lots of links on those pages to videos of
what other people have done, you know, interviews with experts,
links to take you wider to things like feed planning
(20:05):
and body condition and things like that, so you can
sort of just start dipping into things and gathering your
own information.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
I find with my own because I I've got my own.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Little consultancy business as well. Often by the time people
come to me, they've actually done a lot of this
reading and stuff for themselves, and I'm not really having
to explain much to them.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
It's more of a supporting kind of role to go.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yep, yep, that you've got that right, that's a good
idea that will work, and it's just more of a
supporting and handholding sort of role, so that those farm
system pages are probably a really good taste to start.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Brilliant, brilliant and also Facebook yep, so.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Wo wise has got a Facebook page where we're putting
up regular content. People have really enjoyed those videos that
have been up on Facebook, so to make them easier
to find again, we have put them all up on
you tube as well. So if you sort of google,
you know, look for wormwise on YouTube, you'll now find
(21:07):
all those videos on there.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Nice. Nice, I like it. Jinny Dedanski Wurmwise, program manager
for Beef and Lamb, New Zealand. Look, I knew at
the start of this conversation I was going to come
out of it feeling smarter. I feel more educated. I
don't know about smarter. I think that one's a longer
work for me. But really, thank you so much for
your time and your enthusiasm for this program and sharing
(21:29):
it all with us today.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Thanks very much, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Oh my pleasure. Look episode three coming out next week.
Doctor Kara Brosnahan joining me. Looking at livestock parasite management groups,
why they exist in what they're hoping to achieve or
catch you.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Then insights are parasites with beef and lamb New Zealand
powered by the Country
The Insights on Parasites with Beef and Lamb, New Zealand,
powered by the Country.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, Hello and welcome into episode two Insights on Parasites
and Association with Beef and Lamb, New Zealand. This is
as I mentioned in our second episode, we caught up
with doctor Susie Keeling last week. Today I'm joined by
Jenny Dedanski, Wormwais Program Manager. Hello, Jenny, welcome in, Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Right, and thanks so much for having me. I always
enjoy having these conversations.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, absolutely, I come away from it feeling like I've
learnt something, so that's always a bonus as well. Hey,
tell me a bit about your background and how you
came to be the Wormwais program Manager.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, sure, thank you. So I was a production animal
vet mostly sheet and beef for sort of twenty four
or five years or so before taking on that role.
I've been really, really fortunate in my early career to
work with Trevor Kok, who many of your listeners will know,
and it was at a time where we had lots
(01:02):
of scope and money to do big projects on monitor
farms and lots of trial work and stuff like that,
and a lot of that involved parasites. So I've always
been really involved with how we can better set up
our farm systems to make parasites less of an issue.
(01:23):
And the neat thing about that is the production benefits
from that are usually really big too, so it's a
win win. And so when this worm Wise program manager
role came up, I thought, Oh, I can't let someone
else do that.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
I do that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
So I put my name in Manhattan and I.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Was really really stoked.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Then Bryer at Beef and then gave me the job.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So I am absolutely And what part of New Zealand
are you based in, Jenny.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I'm in the central North Island. I'm down the south
end of Lake Topo, and we are very dry here
at the moment. Just having a meeting with some other
vets from around the country this morning, and everybody else
was talking about how great it is and we're not. Yeah,
we would like a tropical subtropical low to came and
dump some rain on us here at the moment.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
A couple of weeks ago, I flew in for the
summer concert series and I remember saying on the radio
the next day, look, they need rain here, and then
the rain needs rain, and then that follow up rain
needs follow up rain, and then that needs follow up
rain and so on. Like, it's not something that's going
to correct itself overnight.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
No, we need looking at our soil moisture in the
rainfall that we've had since about November. We actually need
a good hundred miles here to set things right again.
So we really need to start making some dry planning decisions,
if not making them, already making them this week.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, Well I'll be doing my rain dance
for you probably I reckon for about the next six
weeks to two months.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
We'll look forward to that.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Oh absolutely, Look, Jenny, tell me about the womb program.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, So the Wollomwise program sprung up out of a
big national survey that was done on drench resistance back
in the early two thousands, and you know the results
from that survey deck at that time seemed quite scary
in terms of the amount of drench resistance that was about.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
On farms and roomwives.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Was supposed to be an initiative that was a various groups.
MPI originally funded it through the Sustainable Farming Fund A FANS,
who are the association that represent drench sales and manufacture.
The Veterinary Association, Beef and LAMB, who are the sole
funder of it now, and also Dairy and Z and
(03:43):
Deer industry are all you know, all put input into
the program that. Yeah, as I say, Beef and LAMB
are the only ones funding it. Until I came on
as program manager, it was sort of a run by
committee thing that really needed some extra horsepower to get
the messages out better than what it was. It had
(04:06):
a very basic website that looked like it came from
nineteen ninety eight, and it had you know, we had
the wormise workshops and some printed material, but it was
pretty limited. And in some research that Beef and Lamb
did a couple of years ago looking at how farmers
want to get their information on parasites, one of the
clear messages from that was only about twenty five or
(04:30):
thirty percent of people actually want to go to a workshop.
So given that workshops were one of the main ways
of getting wormise information out, you know that it was
obviously never going to be super successful, so we needed
to change it up. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, well something you have definitely been able to sink
your teeth into. Jenny, You've been running this program as
you say, for a couple of years. Now, what are
the main things that wormisers focused on in that time,
and do you think it's actually starting to have an
impact next.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, I guess to start with, it was just really
directly trying to get in front of farmers as much
as possible. I had this grand vision that I could
go out to farmers that I knew who were doing
a really great job of managing wombs, and film these
really professional videos about what they were doing and put
it on social media. And I very quickly realized that my.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Budget does not stretch. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, so yeah, well you would know. So just that
just morphed into me getting my phone and going right,
I just need to start talking to people. So when
I look back on the early womb wise, you know,
social media videos, I realized I've learned quite a lot
about things like southeasticks and stands and things that are
not waving my phone around and everybody feels like they're
(05:44):
on in a ship in the sea. But yeah, I
think those that their early social media effort in terms
of just getting little videos out regularly, I think that
really helped. And then we you know, we also apped
our presence in the rural media the same time. It
took everything takes longer than I want. But you know,
(06:06):
we got a new website up and running last year
which is very very different from the old one, and yeah,
you know there's some really great resources on here. It's
very farm system focused, so you know, trying to make
the point that this is not just about the worm
life cycle and drench It is very much about how
do we set our systems up from the ground up
(06:27):
to make them least challenging to our animals with regard
to worms. So that that's been a big one. The
website build, that was a big lot of work. We
have increased the variety in spread of the worm wise
workshops that we do, sort of having ones like advanced
farm system workshops and kettle workshops and you know, just
(06:48):
whatever really is going to suit the people in that
district and the things that they.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Want to focus on.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
The other big one, too is what Beef and Land
like to call influencing the influencers, So recognizing that when
never use survey farm is about parasites and animal health,
they always say that they get most of their info
from their vets, and so really trying to focus on
you can't standardize people because you can't write people. You
(07:16):
can never standardize people, but at least trying to up
the level of advice decrease some of the inconsistency. That's
always been a big piece of feedback about parasites is
that you know, I can ask four different people and
get six different answers about the same thing. So we're
(07:36):
really really trying to help the vets out.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Both with workshops for vets.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Also we have an online discussion forum about parasites that
we've started for vets about eighteen months ago, and that
I need to go through and sort of counter up
all the activity that's been on that, But that's been huge,
and I quite often get feedback from vets when I
talk to them that I never I never post anything
on there because I'm too scared, but I'm reading it
(08:04):
all the time and and on that I'm really hastened by.
You know a lot of young vets or vets coming
from overseas who are prepared to post questions that are
quite basic.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But probably is that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Wondering that you know, probably there's there's two hundred other
people out there that probably wondering the same things. Yeah,
that's been great. And so I mean I to you
a question about the impact. I mean, I naively feel
like it is helping, but then I get brought down
to earth every so often by you know, something I'll
(08:36):
see on a on a farming page on Facebook or
something with some questions that that I think.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Are like, wow, that's either really basic.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Or you know, why are you asking that? And and
and also stories of you know, fans that are still
really really struggling with drench resistance and you know, availability
of product or you know, poor performance and things that
Obviously there are are groups of people out there who
are still aren't excessing the help and support that they
(09:09):
need to come out of these problems that they're having,
and I'd love to be able to help those people more.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, every chance I get to to get information out,
that's great. But in the end, farmers do need I find,
you know, some local support and local help, and maybe
that might be where some of the missing links are,
but we keep trying.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah. Absolutely, And look, speaking of drench resistance, when wise,
you've just released a report showing worrying levels of drench
resistance and cattle. Two where do you find what did
you find? And were too from here.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, that is a good question. We've been lucky in
New Zealand the last sort of four or five years
that one of the oratory providers a NUIs and also
check you on down and Dunedin have been putting out
sort of annual summaries of the status the state of
the nation, if you like, with regard to drench resistance
(10:11):
and sheep. So we've had a good hand on the
deterioration of that and the you know, probably everybody's said
somewhere that's found by the third of farms have got
triple drench resistance. But we really other than anecdote from
vets in the odd you know, wheels falling off, case
from car fearing properties or whatever, we haven't got that
(10:32):
data for Kettle until now.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
And when I call it data, this is I will admit.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It's pretty sketchy. What I did last year was I
went out to the vets on that online forum and said,
please send me your drench testing data that you've got,
and I also went out to other veterinarians that I
knew personally who collected some of this and asked them
to send it to me. So what we've got is
(10:59):
a collect of sixty nine individual what we call faker
wee coount reduction tests, which are a comprehensive test of
a particular drench. So fifty nine of those from sixteen
different kettle properties. So I admit it's not a proper
extensive national survey, but it does stretch the length of
(11:21):
New Zealand and I think it is pretty representative of
what's going on on young intensive kettle properties anyway. So
these are mostly dairy heifer blocks and bull beef blocks
that we've looked at. Here there was one farm in
the group that were a beef breeding farm, just cows
and calves, you know, mixed into a bigger system, and
(11:42):
that fam actually had no drench resistance. So I think
you probably are farm system differences with drench resistance and
kettle this would suggest. But anyway, we've got this data
and a what have we got? A sixty nine percent
of those fifty nine individual tests had some level of
resistance to some drench or other and that involved eighty
(12:05):
one percent of the farm, so you know, pretty extensive.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
We've got failure of.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Triple drench against one worm couperia in six out of
the eleven tests. And also very commonly used in young
cattle would be a combination of a netin drench and
of Amazon I won't name products because we try not
to do that on the radio. That year, twelve out
of the nineteen tests of those also showed resistance. So
(12:34):
I think, you know, we have these really worrying test
results and until now it's been kind of a sticking
point to get progress with other groups to help us
extend some of these worm wise messages. You know, when
you say to people, oh, we think there's quite a
lot of drench resistance in cattle in New Zealand, well,
(12:56):
you know the first response is show me the data.
So you know, as light as this data is in
terms of numbers, it paints a very clear picture. And
I have sent this out to dairy and z some
of the dairy companies. Yes, it's been pretty widely extended
in really getting some great interaction with them now in
(13:20):
terms of what can we do to help. So I
think in the next couple of years you will, as
if you're a cattle farmer, dairy grazer, you know, dairy farmer,
you'll probably start to see if you're not all reader,
you'll start to see some more information on this coming
through different channels rather than just from worm wise, because
we recognize that it as an industry problem, and particularly
(13:43):
in the dairy industry. You know, that challenge of growing
heath is out well, so that big robust cows when
they come into the herd, and then we get less
wastage of cows once they're in the herd. You know,
parasites are a big limiting factor on this, then we
really need to deal with that. So I think it
is an industry wide thing, and I'm hattened by the
(14:04):
responses I'm getting from the dairy industry.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, yeah. So often I hear about this collaboration from
cross sector departments and different organizations, and it always warms
my heart because you know, these aren't issues we're able
to tackle and address in isolation. The power of everyone
combined is what's going to actually see some improvement here
as well. Look, what are some practical messages you can
(14:28):
give firm as why they don't know if they have
drench resistance or already know they do, but are struggling
to see a way out.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Yeah cool.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
I mean, so the first group, which is probably the
biggest group, don't know whether or not we've got drench
resistant wounds that are going to at some point cause
a problem. The really simple message there is just do
some drench checks. A drench check is where you've drenched
your young calves or lambs with whatever your routine products
(14:57):
and somewhere in the range of one to two weeks,
and take some fresh fecal samples to your vet or
other laboratory provider and get them checked. If the drench
has worked really, really well, then there should be no
worm eggs in there. If it hasn't, then there'll be
plenty of worm eggs, and you may not see that
in your young stock at all at that point in
(15:19):
terms of performance. I just ran a drench check for
one of my own clients the other day, and based
on my advice, that used a certain product, and I thought, oh,
that'll be all right at this time of the year,
and yeah, these lands.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Were still what looked like full of worms.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
They're actually growing all right, thank goodness. But had we
gone on months after months using this product, then come
the autumn, this whole thing was going to tip over
with these resistant worms that we've been leaving behind in
the lambs and contaminating the pastures with even I can
mess this up, but I'm just so pleased that they're
(15:55):
in the process of regular monitoring.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
They did the.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Drench, we know it hasn't worked, so we can put
some mitigations in place and go, well, we're not going
to do that again this season away. Whereas if you're
just not looking, you will at some point some autumn
down the track, you're going to sleep walk into a problem.
That's what we have seen on these farms with sick
and dying lands in the last few years. And you know,
(16:18):
by the time you see those sick young animals, the
drenches are really almost completely failing. It's not sort of
a you know, you've got thirty percent of the eggs
left behind or something. You're actually not killing any worms
at all. So yeah, just that quick drench check enables
you to stop there at that stop sign if things
(16:40):
aren't going well and go, okay, which road are we
going to go down now?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And that's where you get your good local advice.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And I said to someone the other day, if this
is cattle and you're in a dairy area, it may
not be that your local vet has a lot to
do with parasite management, and if they're not comp thantil
happy advising you sort of where to from here, then
they should be able to either review you to somebody
else in their business or somebody else locally who can
(17:09):
help you more. And that may well be the vet
who deals with sheep farmers more often in your patch,
because they've probably been dealing with this issue for a
bit longer. So just some good, practical local help. And
then there's all this farm system stuff. So in terms
of you know, this is flowing onto your question about
people who are already struggling with drench resistance, and this
(17:31):
is probably more likely to be sheep farmers. I guess
the first thing to acknowledge is that there are no
quick fixes. And if you're one of those farms who
already feel like you're trapped in only being able to
use the most newest expensive drenches because the other ones
aren't working, that's only a short road to those other
(17:53):
drenches not working as well. So there's some real system
change that's required. But you do probably we need some
good help and support, and you also need to realize
that the winds aren't fast when you're doing this, so
it can take a good couple of years. Those areas
of the farm where you've had a lot of young
stock that might be quite heavily contaminated with worms. It
(18:17):
takes away while to unwind all that stuff with different
policy decisions, different grazing management, you know, different maybe crops
and things like that, but they're not you know, that's
not the way forward for every farm. It sounds like
a cliche, but every farm is different. Yeah, So the
advices get some good help and look at what are
the underlying factors in your farm that are driving that
(18:40):
high worm contamination and making use so reliant on drench
because in the end, we're not going to fix drench
resistance by throwing different or more drench at it. We
do need to work on our system and drop the
worm challenge. And that's not something I can necessarily give
people specific guidelines about on a podcast that that's the
(19:02):
underlying factor, is that dropping that womb challenge? So that's
a yeah, let's say that's something we need bespoke help with.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah. Yeah, So if people are interested, and you mentioned
you've given your website a bit of a up as well,
where can people go to find more information? Jinny?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, definitely. The worm Wise website is a really good
first place to start, you know, and if you're one
of those farmers that's already you know, we've got major
problems and we just want to jump to some solutions.
There are a couple of pages on their called Wounds
in your Farm System. There's wombs and kettle kettle systems
and wombs and cheap systems. Those might be quite a
(19:45):
good place to start, just to look at what am
I doing, what's the level of risk, what are some
suggestive mitigations to that? And then you can and there
are lots of links on those pages to videos of
what other people have done, you know, interviews with experts,
links to take you wider to things like feed planning
(20:05):
and body condition and things like that, so you can
sort of just start dipping into things and gathering your
own information.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
I find with my own because I I've got my own.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Little consultancy business as well. Often by the time people
come to me, they've actually done a lot of this
reading and stuff for themselves, and I'm not really having
to explain much to them.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
It's more of a supporting kind of role to go.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yep, yep, that you've got that right, that's a good
idea that will work, and it's just more of a
supporting and handholding sort of role, so that those farm
system pages are probably a really good taste to start.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Brilliant, brilliant and also Facebook yep, so.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Wo wise has got a Facebook page where we're putting
up regular content. People have really enjoyed those videos that
have been up on Facebook, so to make them easier
to find again, we have put them all up on
you tube as well. So if you sort of google,
you know, look for wormwise on YouTube, you'll now find
(21:07):
all those videos on there.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Nice. Nice, I like it. Jinny Dedanski Wurmwise, program manager
for Beef and Lamb, New Zealand. Look, I knew at
the start of this conversation I was going to come
out of it feeling smarter. I feel more educated. I
don't know about smarter. I think that one's a longer
work for me. But really, thank you so much for
your time and your enthusiasm for this program and sharing
(21:29):
it all with us today.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Thanks very much, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Oh my pleasure. Look episode three coming out next week.
Doctor Kara Brosnahan joining me. Looking at livestock parasite management groups,
why they exist in what they're hoping to achieve or
catch you.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Then insights are parasites with beef and lamb New Zealand
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