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Worm burdens are all too familiar a territory to sheep producers but become an ever more persistent burden to the industry. Recent estimates suggest potential economic impacts of £41 million due to production losses and treatment costs.

The use of wormers has provided a plaster to this problem for a long time, however the development of resistance has been a major talking point within the industry and an increasingly realised issue on farm for a lot of producers.

We have recently reviewed wormer resistance across several sheep farms following uptake of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway which has revealed multiple instances of wormer resistance across multiple categories. Similarly, large scale studies have shown a unanimous global increase in parasite resistance to available wormers with white (benzimidazole) drenches in particular becoming more and more ineffective in the last decade.

The alternatives

In light of wormer resistance emerging, multiple alternatives have been explored. Crucially, parasite control strategies that do not rely on wormer use are usually less 'quick-fix' and more 'long-game'. Many of the elements of this approach will be familiar already and a reference to SCOPS is recommended but consist of:

• Routine WEC monitoring to target and reduce wormer use in lambs, monitor wormer success and identify high risk ground
• Risk based grazing: moving animals strategically, for example to avoid high risk ground for naïve lambs
• Exploring EBV's and breeding for worm control
• Using wormers appropriately: effective quarantine dosing, dosing to weight with calibrated guns

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