High awareness of wormer resistance - but more action needed

Results from the Farming Against Wormer Resistance (FAWR) survey (created by Novartis Animal Health and supported by NSA and SCOPS) have given valuable insight into the reality of anthelmintic resistance for the UK sheep farming industry.

In-depth answers from almost 400 farmers, analysed by the campaign’s panel of experts, show the necessity for the growing awareness of wormer resistance to be urgently translated into practical action, ideally starting with testing to understand each individual farm’s resistance status.

Phil Stocker, NSA Chief Executive says: "The findings suggest many farmers are aware of wormer resistance and relate this to poor productivity, but the majority are not able to put in place the actions to identify resistance or prevent resistance building up.

"The message has to be to build closer relationships with vets that have an interest and understanding of sheep parasitology, and to use faecal egg counting as a tool to monitor parasite load in sheep. Careful choice and rotation of wormer base ingredients, and then post-treatment egg counts to test efficacy are important approaches, as is using quarentine and associated treatments for stock coming onto the farm (including the farm's own stock that may have been away grazing) due to the potential risk of bringing on unwanted parasites.

"If we don’t use our wormers responsibly they will have a limited shelf life and, although the above should be followed generally, it is important to work with a vet, use the SCOPS guidelines and get to understand wormers and worm life cycles in more detail. The success of our industry depends on it."

Survey results

Fiona Anderson, Novartis Animal Health Veterinary Manager, says: "Awareness and understanding of wormer resistance is growing, which is good. Looking at the results, we can see that well over half of respondents had heard of resistance being an issue in their area – with levels as high as 78% and 76% in the South West and South Wales.  However, there is clearly still some confusion about the best course of action.

"Three-quarters of respondents were worried about wormer resistance, however I’m concerned that less than 30% had actually tested for it. While the number of farmers aware of possible productivity decline as a result of resistance is encouraging, it does reveal that testing is still not seen as important for a robust worming strategy, and shows a gap between concern and action that we need to address.”

Understanding resistance status

The FAWR project will be driven throughout the coming months by the expert panel, which includes Lesley Stubbings, SCOPS representative and independent sheep consultant. She says “The results of this survey are very encouraging because they confirm that sheep farmers are increasingly aware of the threat of anthelmintic resistance, with two-third saying they have a strategy in place to address it. Our challenge now is to turn that awareness into action. To do this we must demonstrate that anthelmintic resistance is costing them performance and hence profitability.

"This survey clearly shows that a third of the farmers have noticed a decline in their flock performance over recent years and we know that anthelmintic resistance is major component of declining performance because worm control is compromised. Only by testing for anthelmintic resistance can farmers establish whether or not anthelmintic resistance is already costing them as the efficacy of their wormers falls. With just 30% of the respondents testing for anthelmintic resistance currently there is clearly a long way to go to make this a routine part of flock health plans, but it’s a good start.

"Looking further into the data there is still a very heavy reliance on the white drenches with 90% of farmers used them in their worming programme in the past 5 years. This is a concern if less than 30% have tested to see if they are still effective, although on a positive note, the numbers relying on a single active is now in decline. Instead of doing what they done in the past, farmers should be looking to seek professional advice to understand the resistance status on their own farms - this is the first step in building a robust flock health plan incorporating worming, which is so important for their future viability.”

On a further positive note, of those farms that confirmed wormer resistances, over 85% have subsequently incorporated the fourth (orange) class and fifth (purple) class into their worming programme.

Lesley says: “By carefully integrating a new wormer group into their strategy, farmers will extend the useful life of the older wormer classes and should see benefits in terms of lamb performance."

Building a suitable worming management programme

The survey also revealed the positive trend of an increase in contact between sheep farmers and vets in the last five, with just under three-quarters of farmers looked to their vet for advice on worming and over half of them making contact more than twice a year. However, there was an alarming lack of awareness about practice when quarantining incoming stock, with 32% not drenching and therefore increasing the spread of resistance.

Fiona says: “Quarantine is another very important time where farmers need to take professional advice. Only by dosing correctly with a suitable active can farmers prevent importing other farms’ resistance problems and reduce the risk to next year’s lambs on contaminated pastures."