Blowfly workshops strike a chord
Nathan Scott stands and delivers at SimpliFlyTM
“Everyone knows about flystrike, but for all of us there is still more to learn about the fly itself, the really practical tips that can help us reduce the risks, and the range of management options available. I now know more about flies and flystrike than I ever have before.” – Nathan Scott – SimpliFly™ Accredited Advisor
The first of Australian Wool Innovation’s (AWI) SimpliFlyTM workshops have been rolled out in NSW and appear to be striking a chord with more than 100 attendees, 98% of which said they’d taken on new learnings from the events.
· Workshop delivers toolbox of practical and technical information for the management of blowflies
· Satisfaction of participants has been nine out of 10
· Workshops reinforce the importance of doing the small things right
The day-long SimpliFlyTM program provides a toolbox of practical and technical information for the tactical management of blowflies, expanding on eight key themes – from preventing chemical resistance to the use of decision-making tools and the fly breeding cycle.
In NSW, the workshops are delivered by AWI’s grower extension network SheepConnect NSW, and project manager Megan Rogers said they’ve hosted 12 since July.
“The overall satisfaction rating has been nine out of 10 which is really great, and as well as sheep and wool growers and their families, we’ve had chemical company representatives, advisors and stock agents attend these events too,” Ms Rogers said.
“We consider the application and timing of preventative tools, how to make sure you’re adhering to best practice by rotating chemicals to minimise resistance, and greater use of decision-making tools like the FlyBoss risk simulator. People also really like the management calendar and decision support wheel that support best practice.”
Doing the little things right
For David Watt from Central West NSW, the SimpliFlyTM workshop at Forbes brought the risk of chemical resistance to front of mind.
“We use two applications of the same chemical each year to control flies but lately we could see it starting to break down a bit, and when we expected to still have coverage, it wasn’t working in the last month or so of the protection period,” David said.
“As a result of the workshop, we’ve developed a chemical rotation strategy. It’s not a complex process, it just takes a little bit of change to the management calendar, and we were walked through how to do that.”
David travelled from his 5400ha property, Tara Moira on the western side of Trundle, where he runs a mixed sheep, cropping and lamb feedlot enterprise.
David’s fly challenge is more complicated in that he buys numerous store lambs for his feedlot. He also runs around 2000 Merino ewes, joins them to Border Leicester rams and keeps the first cross ewes, which are joined to Dorset rams. Their offspring, as well as bought-in lambs, are turned off as heavy export lambs.
“The workshop reinforced the significance of doing the little things right, that are easy to skip – chemical resistance, how fly control integrates with lice and other management processes – and allows a couple of hours for people to adapt strategies to their own
individual circumstance. It struck a good balance between technical and practical application.”
Ian Cusack and his son William from Bywong at Sutton, near Canberra, experienced a ‘terrible’ fly season last year that was longer than usual, they say, due to a combination of rain and a mild winter. They run close to 2500 sheep – 60% crossbred ewes and 40% Merinos – and 350 breeder cows on 1700ha. They attended the SimpliFlyTM workshop at Yass.
“The workshop gave us a fuller understanding of the life cycle of the fly and showed us how to time chemical application and physical crutching to extend protection as long as possible. We normally crutch around October, but we may go earlier this summer and apply CLiK as our main control chemical a bit later, so that we’re working towards preventing flystrike, rather than reacting to it,” Ian said.
“And as our numbers increase, one of the improvements we could make is to cull any sheep that do get struck, which will reduce the propensity of the fly generally.”
While much of the workshop information wasn’t new to Ian, his son William appreciated having it all collated in the one day.
“I thought it was really good, very interesting, a lot of it was new to me and all the materials we were given to take home will be valuable in managing flies,” William said.
SimpliFlyTM is one of several extension initiatives under AWI’s Flystrike Extension Program (www.wool.com/ flystrikeresources), supporting woolgrowers to improve the lifetime welfare of their sheep, reduce their reliance on mulesing and crutching, optimise chemical use and increase whole farm profitability through the provision of practical information and tools and access to accredited advisor support.
In the SSF, this work ties in with foundational priorities of reducing, refining, and replacing painful husbandry practices; implementing best practice sheep management; humane on-farm euthanasia and preventing and managing disease.