2008 News
Formal trials demonstrate flystrike Clips ‘on track’ for 2010
14 July 2008
ANTI-FLYSTRIKE CLIPS are almost certain to be at the top of woolgrowers’ animal husbandry inventory post 2010, the year when industry has committed to phasing-out mulesing in Australia.
This was the message today from chairman of Australian Wool Innovation Limited Mr Brian van Rooyen and two of the company’s sheep and wool research and development experts.
“It’s clear from the results that Clips will prove to be an important fly strike management tool for a large proportion of Australian woolgrowers from 2009 onwards,” Mr van Rooyen said.
Day 90 results from a major two-year trial conducted on four wool-growing properties in three states will soon be submitted to the Australian Veterinary Journal for publication and peer review.
The study, designed to scientifically evaluate the performance of Clips compared with mulesing, demonstrated that, after 90 days, Clips came out winners in three animal management areas.
These were:
- Significantly less pain and stress for clipped lambs compared with mulesed lambs
- Lower mortality for clipped lambs compared with mulesed lambs
- Greater, faster live body weight gains for clipped lambs compared with mulesed lambs
- Clips worked as well as mulesing in flystrike prevention when used with complementary animal husbandry practices such as jetting
Results from the trials, which began last spring on properties in South Australia, Victoria and NSW, are being recorded and statistically analysed at key stages into the future.
AWI Project Manager Blowfly Control, Ian Evans, said today he expected more positive data would emerge as the two-year study progressed.
“Further measurements will be made during the next 15 months, though these 90-day results from the targeted Clip ‘Positive Control’ Study are a very significant outcome for industry,” he said.
“They confirm Clip experiences to-date; they quantify the benefits and advantages of one system over another; and they provide focus on our continuing R&D into the use of Clips.”
During the study, at each location, a mob of 360 lambs was either clipped, mulesed or left untreated and was then measured and scored for breech and tail bare area, breech wrinkle, dag, urine stain, bodyweight gain, survival and flystrike.
“Besides Clips providing a comparable level of protection from breech flystrike, the study is in-line with previous grazier and researcher observations about the survival, weight gain and welfare benefits of the Clips,” according to Ian Evans.
“For survival and weight gain at day 90, clipped sheep were ahead of mulesed sheep and similar to unmulesed sheep.”
“For bare breech and skin wrinkle traits scores at day 90, Clips were midway between no treatment and mulesing, and were significantly different from both.
“At one site, with a reasonable level of fly challenge, Clips provided good protection against flystrike at days 60 and 90.
“At a second site, with a lower threat of flystrike, Clips also delivered good protection against flystrike.
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Key study findings
Welfare
| Significantly less pain and stress for clipped lambs than mulesed lambs - Significant advantage to Clips |
| Survival | Compared with mulesed lambs, four in 100 more lambs survived when clipped - Significant advantage to Clips |
| Body Weight | Clipped lambs consistently had better daily weight gain and overall bodyweights - Significant advantage to Clips |
| Flystrike | Compared to mulesed lambs, one in 100 more lambs were struck by flies when clipped - Slight advantage to mulesing |
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Ian Evans says this study is an adjunct to the much larger, national Product Development and Testing clip trial of 2007, which assesses the performance of Clips across a range of environments, sheep types and production systems and also a Universal Clip trial where different Clips are compared against each other and with mulesed sheep.
“Full biometric analysis of all the data (near one million individual measurements) from the national 2007 clip trial continues and will be presented to industry as soon as the analysis is completed and a report compiled,” he said.