The Control of Worms Sustainably group has produced an action guide focusing on managing live fluke in bought-in cattle.

The leaflet looks at how quarantine treatments should be used to minimise the risk of introducing resistant liver fluke on-farm and avoiding contamination of pastures.

As an action guide, it aims to encourage farmers to consider the value of quarantine in three steps, house, treat and test.

The leaflet states: "Bringing in cattle or sheep from markets, other farms or common grazing can introduce new diseases to your own farm, including parasites such as liver ?uke.

"Liver ?uke is a common parasite that infects cattle, sheep and other domestic animals as well as wildlife such as deer and rabbits.

"Resistance of liver ?uke to treatments, in particular products containing triclabendazole, appears to be an increasing problem and one that needs managing on all livestock farms.

"It is important that care is taken to reduce selection pressure for resistance whenever possible by only using triclabendazole-containing products when no other options are suitable.

"Other medicines which contain the active ingredients, closantel, clorsulon, nitroxynil, oxyclozanide and albendazole are effective against adult ?ukes and some are effective against late immature stages between seven and eight weeks old."

The leaflet focuses around three steps, housing treatment and testing.

For housing, they recommend keeping newly arrive cattle inside, yarded or on snail pastures, away from other livestock until quarantine treatments have been completed.

For treatment, the leaflet states that it is safest to assume that brought-in animals are infected with resistant liver fluke.

When housing is possible or where cattle can be kept on snail free pastures, treatment can be delayed until the fluke are sufficiently mature to be killed by the chosen product.

If cattle are treated immediately they may need a second treatment to kill off any fluke that were too young to be killed by the first treatment.

For testing, the leaflet suggests not turning out animals onto pasture that might harbour snails until they are free from infection.

This means checking dung for fluke eggs post-treatment to check that all fluke have been killed.

Alternatively, the copro-antigen test offered by a number of different diagnostic labs can indicate if treatment has been successful.

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For more information please visit cattleparasites.org.uk.