BEING familiar with the signs of footrot and foot abscess was vital with wet conditions and heavy pasture about, said Local Land Services (LLS) Riverina District Veterinarian Tony Morton.
Mr Morton said footrot has been found recently in the Riverina but early detection had prevented it spreading to over 1000 breeding sheep on the same farm.
“In one case a notification at Forbes led to a trace to Wagga where we fortunately were able to diagnose footrot just as it was starting to break out,” he said.
“Foot abscess usually causes very severe lameness in one foot, but with footrot the symptoms can vary from mild to severe lameness and usually more than one foot is affected.”
Lambs at foot showing signs of lameness was another alarm bell that meant further investigation was vital, Mr Morton said.
He said while residual areas in Victoria and Tasmania had “plenty” of footrot, NSW had protected status.
The worst outbreak he had seen led to 10pc of the ewes affected, with a large number dying.
“It’s a deadly disease in fat late pregnant twin bearing ewes, they often die from the secondary pregnancy toxaemia,” Mr Morton said.
“Footrot is a notifiable disease. Notification means decent unbiased advice from people with many years experience in successful eradication programs, it also means tracing that can detect the source of the problem and also limit its spread. This is good for the whole sheep industry.”
Mr Morton said producers should allow sheep to dry out their feet if foot abscess is detected and advised that if sheep had to be yarded, they should be run out through a 10pc zinc sulphate footbath.
“Major outbreaks are usually triggered by yarding, for example at pre-lambing crutching. But in a season like this there will be plenty of cases in sheep that have not been handled,” he said.
“Twin and triplet bearing ewes are the most susceptible, as are older, fatter sheep and fat late pregnant ewes.
“Merinos are probably more susceptible as a desert-derived breed rather than British breed from a wet environment but crossbreds are usually fatter and carrying more twins which are also risk factors.”
Mr Morton said foot abscess was commonly seen in July and August but the problem had started earlier this year due to the exceptional and abnormally warm autumn.
Measures to minimise loss
A DEATH toll of 300 ewes from foot abscess eight years ago meant Owen Blake, “Tarandi”, Harefield, has worked hard to prevent the same loss.
Mr Blake estimated around two per cent of his 3800 crossbred ewes had suffered an abscess this season.
This year he cancelled crutching pre-lambing to minimise risk, with his ewes due to start lambing on July 22.
Mr Blake said the year he suffered his highest loss, he was crutching in the shed – but a move to a portable crutching trailer had made a notable difference.
“One year where we set up the trailer we put carpet for them to walk over so their feet didn’t get bruised,” he said.
“We got caught this year, we left it a bit late so we’ve got 3000 sheep that haven’t been crutched but it was too close to lambing.
“We’ll have to chase the odd dirty one after they lamb down but I wasn’t willing to risk it.”
In the past he had also sprayed around roads, dams and contour banks to kill off some pasture and give sheep somewhere dry to camp, and for the past five years, every time the sheep were let out of the yard they were run through a foot bath of zinc sulphate.
Mr Blake also trimmed and shaped ram’s feet, and kept yards clear by cleaning up sticks and spraying marshmallow regularly.
