How and when to dip, deworm and vaccinate your cattle

Livestock health management has evolved over the decades to include disease prevention and growing farm revenue. The most effective health management strategies are those that include dipping, deworming, and vaccinating animals. Prof Cheryl McCrindle takes a closer look at these practices.

0riginally, livestock veterinarians treated sick livestock. In the 1970s, however, this changed to disease prevention and improving profitability through early diagnosis. The best disease prevention strategy is to develop a system for dipping, deworming and vaccinating cattle specifically aligned to your farming system.

DIPPING

Dipping is the main method used for controlling external parasites in cattle. The word was derived in the early 20th century when 'dipping' meant chasing the herd through a crush-pen so each animal, in turn, plunged into a deep pit filled with water containing a tick-killing chemical (later called an acaricide).

It remained on the skin and controlled ticks and biting flies for a specified time after dipping.

These were called 'dips', even when administered topically or, in the case of ivermectin, by injection or orally. The period that each dip was effective for was used to calculate the dipping interval, or the number of days, weeks or months between dipping. East Coast fever, a fatal tickborne disease that killed approximately 1,5 million cattle in Southern Africa, was eliminated in 1960 by a compulsory weekly dipping schedule that commenced in 1901.

Plunge dipping was dangerous and stressful.

Young calves would often drown if they weren't separated from the herd before entering the crush. Occasionally, adult cattle inhaled dip and battled to breathe. Each animal's brand number was ticked off in the 'dipping record'. The state veterinarian or animal health technician came by at regular intervals to check this document. If discrepancies were found, cattle were slaughtered and their carcasses burnt.

These early dipping programmes eliminated ticks and tsetse flies and protected cattle against midges, mosquitoes and biting flies. Plunge dipping is still used on extensive cattle farms.