In the Animal Health Ireland (AHI) Beef HealthCheck Newsletter’s spring edition, Dr. Natascha Meunier, Beef HealthCheck programme manager outlined the counties with the highest reported cases of live liver fluke in cattle to date this year.
Records of fluke, pneumonia and liver abscesses are captured from cattle at slaughter as part of the Beef HealthCheck programme.
In 2024 to date, records for 144,000 animals have been captured from 8,945 herds. Of these animals, 61% were beef breeds, with 39% steers, 31% heifers, 8% young bulls, and the remainder cows and bulls.
The counties with the highest reported levels of live fluke cases in cattle to date this year are Leitrim, Roscommon, Sligo, and Longford.
2024 is the ninth year of the Beef HealthCheck programme. As part of the programme, temporary veterinary inspectors collect health information on cattle from the slaughter line.
Since the initiation of the programme, information from over 60,700 herds have been gathered to help farmers to make informed decisions on the health of their animals.
The information has also been used to describe the national trends, particularly with liver fluke, which has been decreasing nationally since the programme began.
In addition, 11% of herds that have slaughtered at least 10 animals in the programme have no reported signs of liver fluke since the programme began.
In these herds, flukicide treatment may not be needed and this can reduce unnecessary animal treatments. It is always advised to discuss treatment protocols with your veterinary practitioner as part of a herd health plan.
Are your cattle liver fluke free?
For cattle that were housed over winter, if fluke infection went untreated or if treatment was ineffective, animals may have adult fluke at this time of year.
These adult liver fluke parasites can be seen at slaughter and will be reported as ‘Live fluke’ or fluke eggs could also be present in dung samples from these animals.
If animals were treated with a flukicide around housing and live fluke are present now, it could be that the flukicide treatment protocol was not effective and needs to be reviewed.
Ensuring that there are no liver fluke parasites before turn-out will help to minimise pasture contamination with liver fluke eggs.
Records of fluke, pneumonia and liver abscesses captured as part of the Beef HealthCheck programme remain at similar levels to last year for the same period.
Live fluke was seen in 1.4% of animals’ liver and damage consistent with fluke in the liver was seen in 5.2% of animals.
The levels of live fluke remain low for 2024 although slightly increased on last year for the same eight-week period.
Farmers with known fluke on farm should be vigilant and treat when needed after the particularly wet autumn last year.
Liver abscesses were recorded in 3.9% and pneumonia in 1.9% of animals slaughtered. So far this year, 829 herds (9%) have had at least one animal with live fluke seen at slaughter, which is higher than last year for this period.