At this time of the season, most of us have been drenching on a 28-day system to prevent a massive autumn parasite issue.

This is still regarded as best practice on most farms. The majority of drench used, to this point in the season, will have been triple or double combinations of the three ‘traditional’ drench families. Now it's time to substitute one routine drench and give a Knock Out blow to any parasites that have made it through the previous drenching.

Substituting one drench in the autumn has been shown to delay the development of drench resistance to our ‘traditional’ drench families. We use it in the autumn because this is the time when our environment is best suited to parasites. It’s when parasite larval survival/development is at its peak.

A Knock Out drench will ensure you're not producing a large population of resistant parasites during the Autumn. If you do this, the effectiveness of the ‘traditional’ drenches will drop - and on some farms - this means novels (Zolvix Plus or Startect) are the only drenches that will control internal parasites.

We recommend Zolvix Plus or Startect in February/March for the biggest impact and as a part of your parasite management programme. (There may be other options for your farm, so please ask).

If you would like to discuss your parasite management programme – including non-drenching management tools – please contact us and we can get one of our vets to go through these with you.