Annual Management Plans

Reducing the risk of flystrike involves an integrated approach using breeding and your annual program of management.

There are a range of animal husbandry practices – shearing, crutching, jetting, dipping, worm management and breech modification, which can be used strategically throughout the year to reduce risk. This concept is not new to sheep producers, however, with a shift away from mulesing, it is important to re-assess flystrike risk and the best management program to combat it.

Flyboss – risk assessment tools 

The FlyBoss tools allow you to assess flystrike risk using local weather and climate data. The graphs below have been generated for two typical sheep environments – one summer rainfall and one winter rainfall. You can use the tools to develop a graph for any sheep production region..
 

The FlyBoss tools can be used to:

• Test different management regimes – timing of shearing, crutching and application of chemicals and see the impact on flystrike risk;
• Compare two different systems of management and see which has the lowest risk profile;
• Review the chemicals available for flystrike control – their wool harvesting interval (WHI), meat withhold period (WHP) and export slaughter interval (ESI);
• Develop a flystrike management calendar that is specific and customised for your business.

Flystrike Management Calendar
 

The Flystrike Management Calendar (download below) has been developed to allow producers to document and summarise their integrated approach to flystrike management. A plan can be developed for each class of sheep that require different management throughout the year.

Use the FlyBoss tools to identify the key risk periods for flystrike throughout the year and assess whether your shearing and crutching times are appropriate to counter that risk. Use strategic chemical applications to further reduce risk.

On the Flystrike Management Calender:

• Enter your shearing and crutching dates with an X
• Indicate the months in which you will trap and monitor fly populations or periods when sheep will be closely monitored with an X
• Indicate the months in which breech and body strike will be a High or Medium risk to the flock with a H or an M
• Identify any breech modification, dag management  or chemical applications required for that class of stock with an X in the relevant month. Use lines to indicate the period of protection and/or withhold periods for the chemicals used.
• Indicate the breeding and selection activities that you will implement in association with annual management activities to reduce flystrike risk.

Annual Flystrike Management Calendar (70 KB)

An example of the Flystrike Management Calendar