June 10, 2026 • 9 mins
Rochelle Smith looks at recent Wormwise workshops and some key points around them.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Muster Events Diary brought to you by Beef and
Lamb New Zealand click Beeflambenz dot com. Joining us in
the Beef and Lambs slot this afternoon is Rachelle Smith
out of Nsfest. But today we're talking about wream burdens,
something that has popped up on more south and farms
(00:22):
more frequently are supposed would be the best way to
put it over the last couple of seasons. Rachelle, Welcome
to the Muster.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi Endi, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Look. The warrem Burdon situation has been talked about a
lot recently. A few wrem Mooi's workshops have occurred over
the past couple of days and just people wanting to
talk about the problem and how they rectify it.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, it's we say, a problem, but yeah, it's been
something that's been on everybody's minds for quite a while.
And I think we've sort of we've never thought that
we we didn't have a worm problem, but it is
starting to become more to the front of people's minds now,
which is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Is it getting so bad?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, so's It's probably always been there, to be fair,
but we do start to see a lot more problems
coming into autumn a little bit late. Now obviously we're
well into June, but the season's very autumnal still. You know,
we've still got fourteen fifteen degree climates and we haven't
really had very many frosts, so the conditions are favoring
(01:22):
survival of larvae on the pasture and as well by
the time we get to autumn. What we're actually seeing
is a bit of a reflection of the drench decisions
and things that were made early in the season, and
all the management decisions are students sort of come to
a head now and building up on the pastures.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, that's probably the big concern at the moment with
the lack of frost. So I mean, you can argue
that's the wind to reset where you sterilize in the ground.
If we don't see these run of frost, that's a
big if because this is the South and we're praying
to seeing it happen sooner than later. Is that just
gonna exasperate the problem.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes, the frost is one of the tools that we
have lives dispose down here to help us control our parasites.
But use it will certainly help slow things down, but
it won't actually kill the worms like we had hoped.
Depending on the species you're talking about, there's definitely some
there that can quite happily survive some free store cycles.
So use it's a tool, and but that's just can't
(02:21):
be relied on anymore to control our worms.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, so what do we need to do? I mean,
drenching programs comes first and forefront to mind. Once upon
a time where it's a drench rotation of a clear
white and a combination maybe are mixed and throwing them
for good measure, but we just can't rely on that
these days.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, absolutely, So we're pretty lucky down here. A lot
of our farmers still have some pretty good efaccies to
our drenches. But be in mind that something could be
working quite well early in the season and then come
to autumn it can appear like the wheels are fallen off.
So we sort of get people saying, well, you know
that they shouldn't really need drench yet, but they're starting
(03:01):
to look a bit wormy, or they're a bit lethargic,
or they're just not quite reaching their target you live
weights that they've been doing. Sometimes that's yes, a build
up of drench resistance over the season, but sometimes it
is a reflection of some of the management and actually
those sheep are just eating too many larvae, So the
drench could be working fine. That by being exposed to
(03:23):
a high number of larvae that are in the past
is an autumn just that alone can actually drop the
repetite decreased growth rates and then eventually you know, lead
to major issues like skinny stock and even deaths. So
it's not always drench resistance.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So past your management comes under the equation.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Absolutely, yep. And that's a big, big part of what
the wormwise workshops are about, is like drench is just
one of the tools, but a big, big chunk of
it comes out of on what you can actually do,
you know, to manage that autumn flush I suppose that
autumn rise. Yeah, so first of all, determining if it
is a worm assue I suppose, and not just you know,
(04:03):
something with the feed situation. So doing your accounts is
always important just as a bit of a reflection if anything,
to show you how much how much contamination is actually
out there, Like it's a tool to say, yeah, I
need to drink or not, but also it's a tool
to say, well, how has my management gone up to Now?
If those the accounts start rapidly climbing, you know that
you're in a high contamination environment, so you need to
(04:27):
an autumn. You've got to get them off that contaminated pasture. Basically,
this is lambs really we're talking about. So a lot
of guys may already have their lambs on things like
kl or rape, but if you don't then and you're
starting to see these problems, then you really soon need
to get mostus autumn pasture. And I mean, if you
don't have access to that sort of thing, you may
have to make those decisions on either quitting a few lambs,
(04:49):
selling to the works slightly lower weight, just taking that
lower weight. You may be selling a store or you
might not have wanted to, and you may even be
having to look at grazing these lambs somewhere else, out
off to a place that's got maybe set up for
keeping limbs off pastures.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Richelle, would you say there's an issue with a quarantine
of stock after drenching, so they're not just going back
onto a pasture and reinfecting it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, So that's another section that comes into our worm
wise workshops really is what do we do with these
sheep after drenching. So first of all, you've got to
know if your drench has worked, and as these drenches
may not be working so well, particularly an autumn, you
don't want to be doing our old drench and put
onto clean pasture because you straight away could be creating
(05:36):
a contaminate environment with worms that are resistant. So you've
turned this clean paddict into a paddict that only has
worms you can't kill on it. So the recommendation is
to put them somewhere where if anything does for the drench,
it's going into an already contaminated environment, so and not
going out and seeding the rest of your farm with
these resistant strains. So that might be either drenching them,
(06:01):
putting them back where they came from, or you might
be shifting them to a cleaner area for a day
or two and then drenching them just so that you're
not getting a variety of those worms out back into
the pasture.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
A lot of people are using kettle in the paddocks
as well as far as controlling pasture. What approach do
you need to take around this as such?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, so that's an awesome way, Like, you know, you
want to get those lambs off that feed, but something's
going to want to eat it, So what are you
going to put through? The kettle are a great choice
if you've got access to them. Even calves is okay,
a different different species of animal. If you don't have them,
then potentially you've got some old views or some mixed
age us that could go around there quite happily that
(06:44):
are in good condition or even good condition to if
they are in good condition and can handle a high
worm bread and deal with it themselves, then they could
go through. You know, ideally the older, older us would
be better. And also thinking about that pedoc too, something
that I did want to stress really is what you
can do with that in the future, Like that paddock
(07:04):
is hot, so yes, you want to grade those other
animals through it, try and clean up those worms that
are out there, but you're probably going to end up
lambing up there. Most of the places will lamb on
every part of their farm. But you don't want to
be lambing any hoggets or your two roofs on that
pasture because you're just going to set up there next
year's lambs for failure. Really So if you can find
(07:26):
your mixt age used proof would be maybe your singles
to then go and lamb over that pastures that lambs
were on in autumn. If that makes sense, then they
are a lower risk. And the one thing you definitely
don't want to do is you don't want to wean
next year's lambs onto these passes that you've had lambs
on in autumn.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Just finally, the issue of drench resistance, if it's not
it's not put under. Just finally, Rashelle, regarding drench resistance,
if it isn't contained, just how bad could the situation get?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, it can get quite bad if you continue to
think you're going to drench your way out of this situation.
So probably we look to wear in North Island people
where it is. It is worse up there, it's fair
to say so, just looking and learning from things that
they have done. But it's not impossible to get yourself
(08:19):
out of out of a drench resistance hole. But it's
not going to be solved with drench. So the management
may even be changing your whole farm system, your whole
mindset around what stock you're going to have, what stock
classes and at what times of the year and extra
feed that you're going to put in extra finishing feed
to try and get those lambs, basically reducing lamb days
(08:40):
on farm or lamb days on grass. It is going
to be where you're going to be looking for the future,
to be able to keep farming in the face of
drench resistance.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Rachelle Smith, thanks very much for your time on the
mast of us afternoon.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Awesome and thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Rachelle Smith a vet out at Riversdale with any events
for talking today regarding pasture management and that issue around
drench resistance. Bflaming z dot com slash events to get
the e box received into your get the e Diary
to your inbox every Friday morning. Got there eventually. Andrew
Walsh's up next out of Twin Farm Genetics
The Muster Events Diary brought to you by Beef and
Lamb New Zealand click Beeflambenz dot com. Joining us in
the Beef and Lambs slot this afternoon is Rachelle Smith
out of Nsfest. But today we're talking about wream burdens,
something that has popped up on more south and farms
(00:22):
more frequently are supposed would be the best way to
put it over the last couple of seasons. Rachelle, Welcome
to the Muster.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi Endi, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Look. The warrem Burdon situation has been talked about a
lot recently. A few wrem Mooi's workshops have occurred over
the past couple of days and just people wanting to
talk about the problem and how they rectify it.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, it's we say, a problem, but yeah, it's been
something that's been on everybody's minds for quite a while.
And I think we've sort of we've never thought that
we we didn't have a worm problem, but it is
starting to become more to the front of people's minds now,
which is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Is it getting so bad?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, so's It's probably always been there, to be fair,
but we do start to see a lot more problems
coming into autumn a little bit late. Now obviously we're
well into June, but the season's very autumnal still. You know,
we've still got fourteen fifteen degree climates and we haven't
really had very many frosts, so the conditions are favoring
(01:22):
survival of larvae on the pasture and as well by
the time we get to autumn. What we're actually seeing
is a bit of a reflection of the drench decisions
and things that were made early in the season, and
all the management decisions are students sort of come to
a head now and building up on the pastures.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, that's probably the big concern at the moment with
the lack of frost. So I mean, you can argue
that's the wind to reset where you sterilize in the ground.
If we don't see these run of frost, that's a
big if because this is the South and we're praying
to seeing it happen sooner than later. Is that just
gonna exasperate the problem.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes, the frost is one of the tools that we
have lives dispose down here to help us control our parasites.
But use it will certainly help slow things down, but
it won't actually kill the worms like we had hoped.
Depending on the species you're talking about, there's definitely some
there that can quite happily survive some free store cycles.
So use it's a tool, and but that's just can't
(02:21):
be relied on anymore to control our worms.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, so what do we need to do? I mean,
drenching programs comes first and forefront to mind. Once upon
a time where it's a drench rotation of a clear
white and a combination maybe are mixed and throwing them
for good measure, but we just can't rely on that
these days.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, absolutely, So we're pretty lucky down here. A lot
of our farmers still have some pretty good efaccies to
our drenches. But be in mind that something could be
working quite well early in the season and then come
to autumn it can appear like the wheels are fallen off.
So we sort of get people saying, well, you know
that they shouldn't really need drench yet, but they're starting
(03:01):
to look a bit wormy, or they're a bit lethargic,
or they're just not quite reaching their target you live
weights that they've been doing. Sometimes that's yes, a build
up of drench resistance over the season, but sometimes it
is a reflection of some of the management and actually
those sheep are just eating too many larvae, So the
drench could be working fine. That by being exposed to
(03:23):
a high number of larvae that are in the past
is an autumn just that alone can actually drop the
repetite decreased growth rates and then eventually you know, lead
to major issues like skinny stock and even deaths. So
it's not always drench resistance.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So past your management comes under the equation.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Absolutely, yep. And that's a big, big part of what
the wormwise workshops are about, is like drench is just
one of the tools, but a big, big chunk of
it comes out of on what you can actually do,
you know, to manage that autumn flush I suppose that
autumn rise. Yeah, so first of all, determining if it
is a worm assue I suppose, and not just you know,
(04:03):
something with the feed situation. So doing your accounts is
always important just as a bit of a reflection if anything,
to show you how much how much contamination is actually
out there, Like it's a tool to say, yeah, I
need to drink or not, but also it's a tool
to say, well, how has my management gone up to Now?
If those the accounts start rapidly climbing, you know that
you're in a high contamination environment, so you need to
(04:27):
an autumn. You've got to get them off that contaminated pasture. Basically,
this is lambs really we're talking about. So a lot
of guys may already have their lambs on things like
kl or rape, but if you don't then and you're
starting to see these problems, then you really soon need
to get mostus autumn pasture. And I mean, if you
don't have access to that sort of thing, you may
have to make those decisions on either quitting a few lambs,
(04:49):
selling to the works slightly lower weight, just taking that
lower weight. You may be selling a store or you
might not have wanted to, and you may even be
having to look at grazing these lambs somewhere else, out
off to a place that's got maybe set up for
keeping limbs off pastures.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Richelle, would you say there's an issue with a quarantine
of stock after drenching, so they're not just going back
onto a pasture and reinfecting it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, So that's another section that comes into our worm
wise workshops really is what do we do with these
sheep after drenching. So first of all, you've got to
know if your drench has worked, and as these drenches
may not be working so well, particularly an autumn, you
don't want to be doing our old drench and put
onto clean pasture because you straight away could be creating
(05:36):
a contaminate environment with worms that are resistant. So you've
turned this clean paddict into a paddict that only has
worms you can't kill on it. So the recommendation is
to put them somewhere where if anything does for the drench,
it's going into an already contaminated environment, so and not
going out and seeding the rest of your farm with
these resistant strains. So that might be either drenching them,
(06:01):
putting them back where they came from, or you might
be shifting them to a cleaner area for a day
or two and then drenching them just so that you're
not getting a variety of those worms out back into
the pasture.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
A lot of people are using kettle in the paddocks
as well as far as controlling pasture. What approach do
you need to take around this as such?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, so that's an awesome way, Like, you know, you
want to get those lambs off that feed, but something's
going to want to eat it, So what are you
going to put through? The kettle are a great choice
if you've got access to them. Even calves is okay,
a different different species of animal. If you don't have them,
then potentially you've got some old views or some mixed
age us that could go around there quite happily that
(06:44):
are in good condition or even good condition to if
they are in good condition and can handle a high
worm bread and deal with it themselves, then they could
go through. You know, ideally the older, older us would
be better. And also thinking about that pedoc too, something
that I did want to stress really is what you
can do with that in the future, Like that paddock
(07:04):
is hot, so yes, you want to grade those other
animals through it, try and clean up those worms that
are out there, but you're probably going to end up
lambing up there. Most of the places will lamb on
every part of their farm. But you don't want to
be lambing any hoggets or your two roofs on that
pasture because you're just going to set up there next
year's lambs for failure. Really So if you can find
(07:26):
your mixt age used proof would be maybe your singles
to then go and lamb over that pastures that lambs
were on in autumn. If that makes sense, then they
are a lower risk. And the one thing you definitely
don't want to do is you don't want to wean
next year's lambs onto these passes that you've had lambs
on in autumn.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Just finally, the issue of drench resistance, if it's not
it's not put under. Just finally, Rashelle, regarding drench resistance,
if it isn't contained, just how bad could the situation get?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, it can get quite bad if you continue to
think you're going to drench your way out of this situation.
So probably we look to wear in North Island people
where it is. It is worse up there, it's fair
to say so, just looking and learning from things that
they have done. But it's not impossible to get yourself
(08:19):
out of out of a drench resistance hole. But it's
not going to be solved with drench. So the management
may even be changing your whole farm system, your whole
mindset around what stock you're going to have, what stock
classes and at what times of the year and extra
feed that you're going to put in extra finishing feed
to try and get those lambs, basically reducing lamb days
(08:40):
on farm or lamb days on grass. It is going
to be where you're going to be looking for the future,
to be able to keep farming in the face of
drench resistance.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Rachelle Smith, thanks very much for your time on the
mast of us afternoon.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Awesome and thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Rachelle Smith a vet out at Riversdale with any events
for talking today regarding pasture management and that issue around
drench resistance. Bflaming z dot com slash events to get
the e box received into your get the e Diary
to your inbox every Friday morning. Got there eventually. Andrew
Walsh's up next out of Twin Farm Genetics
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