Macra club chair, John Mulcahy runs a large flock of Charollais X Belclare ewes with his father Kevin and brother Colm.

Based in south Tipperary and lambing from mid-March onwards, the family run farm operates on an indoor lambing system with an average scan rate of 1.9.

John finishes all his lambs on catch grown crops grown locally by tillage farmers. Lambs are finished at 50kg liveweight for Tynan Meats in Johnstown, Co. Kilkenny.

John also buys in horned lambs in September and aims to finish them out of the sheds, before housing their own ewes in January.

For several years now, the Macra club chair has been using Moxodex Oral to treat his lambs, when worming is needed.

John performs worm egg counts and carefully monitors his stock for signs of disease. This includes keeping a careful eye on growth rates and weights.

His decision to use Moxodex Oral are based on the following factors:

Increased lamb thrive: Lamb thrive is essential to John as he is aware that a heavy worm burden can reduce lamb average daily gain by as much as 40%. Taking a target weekly weight gain of 1kg/lamb and conservative price per kilo of €3.00 live weight this could result in a loss of €1.20 per lamb in lamb thrive per week. Using Moxodex Oral allows lambs to progress with no set back from a heavy worm burden;
Eight-week dosing interval: Moxodex Oral drench has a persistent action of up to five weeks against Telodorsagia and Haemonchus, allowing for an eight-week dosing interval. This minimises the handling of lambs, reduces the stress on both the farmer and the animals. John is also the chair of the local Macra club in Rathkeevin. With upcoming events such as Queen of the Castle taking place over the August bank holiday weekend in Cahir, John will utilise the eight-week dosing interval to ensure lambs are covered during this busy period;
14-day withdrawal period: A short withdrawal period is a huge advantage to John as he has the ability to draft lambs that are fit for the factory just 14 days post dosing, this allows John to target better market prices;
Reduced pasture contamination: Moxodex Oral with the active ingredient moxidectin, is the only wormer that persists long enough to suppress the egg output for enough time to reduce the risk of pasture contamination and potentially reduce the need for multiple worm treatments, this could save John time, money and reduce the number of worming doses used on a farm.