February 19, 2025 • 21 mins
If you’re worried about Facial Eczema, you’re not alone - this disease continues to be a problem here in New Zealand, and the usual management strategies just aren’t cutting it. In this special edition podcast, thanks to Face-Guard from Elanco, The Country’s Rowena Duncum is joined by Dr Emma Cuttance - an epidemiologist and expert in animal health – to break down what FE really is, why it’s such a challenge, and - most importantly - what we need to do differently. If you care about the health of your herd, you won’t want to miss this.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Shut the Gate on Facial Expert with Faceguard from Ilanco
powered by the Country.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, hello and welcome into this special edition podcast. My
name is Rowena Duncan, your host for today and we
are looking at how to shut the Gate on facial
x meer thanks to Faceguard by Alanco joining me today
to be our expert commentator. Here as Emma Cuttin's Managing
director of EPI Vets Limited. Hello, Emo, welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Thank you, I mean to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm so glad you are because I'm really looking forward
to picking your brains on this subject. Being a former
dairy farmer myself, I hate facial exmert with a vengeance.
Being a vet yourself, I imagine you do as well.
Tell me before we get underway, tell me a bit
about yourself, your background and what you do.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Great. So, I originally actually was a production animal vet.
I started in Tiawa Mutu in two thousand and seven,
really got into it, loved it, and throughout that really
got into her health and you know, really interested at
the farm level stuff. Now very early on, because it
(01:10):
was two thousand and seven when I started, it hit
into two thousand and eight and that just happened to
be a really bad facial x men year. I remember
it well, and farmers were just pulling their hair out.
There were clinical facial ex macals everywhere, and I remember
sitting with a colleague of mine and just being like,
we've got to do this better. We've got to be
(01:31):
able to advise farmers better. And that, to be honest,
started this big journey for me within my career of
looking at facial x mera and we started doing a
number of trials and trying to manage it better for
our clients, and that ended up coincidentally leading into master's
inventory science, and so I did that, majoring in epidemiology.
(01:52):
You know, just a little side note of what that is,
because that's a ridiculous word. It's really the study of
disease and populations. And so when COVID came out, all
the epidemiologists seemed to come out of their caves all
of a sudden. Everybody knew what an epidemiologist was. So
but generally speaking, we're looking at the study of population
in a particular disease. In my instance, so I did
(02:15):
my masters actually on management of facial EXNA and from
that point we just did back to back years on
different studies to do with management of facial exa and
why it's all falling. Apart from there, it expanded into
I ended up doing a PhD. Not on facial x men.
I ended up doing it on calves and I love
passive transfer. And in amongst all of this it's sort
(02:37):
of not a straight timeline. We ended up myself and
a friend of mine started doing research more commonly within
the Venory practice that we were in, and we started
a research division and that grew and grew, and we
ended up with about five of us in this research
division that became our sole job. Then it just shy
of three years ago we split away from the new
(03:00):
practice that we were in and we set up Epivets.
And so Epivets is a research and epidemiology business. We
have to say fourteen of us now in New Zealand.
We have a business in Australia and we do a
lot of research, statistical analysis, disease modeling, regulatory work, trying
(03:21):
to get products to market and so that's now the business.
So research now is my gig.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, amazing, And this all came from a seminal moment
back in was it two thousand and eight around facial excella.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
That's right, and that's what's set off. To be honest,
my research career was trying to figure out how can
we do this better with facial excema. There has to
be another way, and that's why this disease is super
special for me because of how it actually changed my
whole career fantastic.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, I'm so glad Alanko suggested you as my talent
for today. I'm looking forward to this conversation for people
who might be newer to the industry because we all
start somewhere. Let's go back to the basics before we
get into it. What is facial xner cool?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
You know, the crazy thing about facial x meer is
it's got the most ridiculous name. It's not it's not
actually the ex mera and it's not on the face.
So the actual true name of it is piper microtoxicosis,
but no one's going to want to know that, right.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I can't even say it lexn I know.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I don't now what it is is. It's actually a
disease of the liver. So what happens is there's a
fungus that loves to grow in new Zealand and a
few other countries, but it's it's particular to us, and
it produces a spare and that spore has a toxin
in it called sporid esmond. Now, that spore gets produced
(04:51):
when the weather is warm and humid, right, So that's
why often the North Island is very popular for this
disease because we get that warm and humid weather. When
that happens, the fungus is so happy and it spiralates
that it releases all these spores with the toxin in it. Now,
this fungus is growing on dead and dyeing matter in
(05:12):
the pasture, right, So if you've got any of that
sort of dead base or even a dying leaf, that's
where that's where the fungus is. You can't see it
but with the naked eye, but it's there. Now, what
happens is the animals eat this and that spore releases
its toxin and it causes there. I won't go into
(05:32):
the detail of it, but let's just say for simplicity,
it causes liver damage. Now, the thing with the liver
is that there are lots of It has many, many
different functions, right, and so it's a it's a building block.
So when they eat various nutrients, fats and proteins, it
directs it to different parts of the bodies, to the
(05:53):
other or making muscle or whatever. But the liver is
also a waste disposal plant, and so when they they
have things, it is the same with humans. When we
need to get rid of something, we do that through
the bile ducts of the liver, and in particular with ruminants,
they are eating grass right now, grass has chlorophyll in it,
(06:14):
the bit that makes it green, and the breakdown products
of chlorophyl need to get out of their system. Now,
when the liver is damaged, this particular toxin damages the
bile ducks, so it can no longer work as a
waste disposal system very effectively. So these breakdown products of
grass end up circulating in the blood. Now, for some animals,
(06:39):
that reacts with the sunlight on the light colored areas
of the animal, and it can cause photosensitivity, and that's
when you get the peeling skin and they get swollen,
and they get irritable odds and all that sort of stuff.
But the key thing about the disease, and this is
probably the most crucial thing, is that that only happens
(07:00):
in about five percent of animals, so everyone thinks, oh,
facial expert, it's all about peeling skin, and you see
these horrific photos of very sore animals, and that's just
truly the tip of the iceberg, because the liver damage
is causing a lot of other problems, and that's largely
to do with production, so they produce a lot less milk,
or for beef cattle, they don't grow as well, or
(07:24):
potentially getting calf as well, and things like that. Same
with sheep, steppins and sheep as well, So that's ultimately
what the disease is. So fungus causes damage to the liver,
and the liver damage has many problems that then affect
how they produce and perform in a herd or a flock.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, you can see why facial XMA is such an
issue for farmers and animals and for the whole industry. EMMA.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
It's the massive issue, and the scary thing about it
is that it is underrecognized, right, so you have a
lot of people knowing that it's going on. But I
still think one of the biggest issues is that when
we're asking farmers saying, hey, have you had a problem
this year? How's you heard going? Most people will say, oh, no,
it's fine, I haven't seen any animals, or yep, it's fine,
(08:16):
I've only had one that looks a little bit further sensitive.
But the problem is is that if you're seeing one,
you've probably got many of the herd that actually have
significant liver damage. And so it's a problem in the
industry that is really underrecognized. That's causing a lot of
production loss.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah. Yeah, a really scary prospect. Kigrey farmers managing the disease.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Emma, I'd love to say yes, that the honest answer
is no. And the reason for that, I mean, there's many,
many reasons, but the primary reason is the one that
I've just said before is that it's underrecognized, so people
don't realize that they have an issue unless they start
doing things like blood testing to see if that's got damage.
(09:05):
Now we've got a lot of people managing it or
attempting to manage it. So certainly up in the areas
where it's more common, which is the North Island or
the top of the South Island, most people are doing
something which is usually giving zinc or some people are
breeding to help get rid of it. Some people are
(09:27):
using fungicides, but the majority of people manage it by
giving it zinc, by giving sorry that the animal zinc
in some way. But the worrying part about this is
that zinc works. There's no two ways about it. It
works right, so it actually attaches to the toxin and
it stabilizes the toxin so the toxin doesn't end up
(09:50):
going through these sort of oxidation reduction reactions, which is
part of how it does it's damage. So the zinc works,
but you have to absolutely saturate the molecule with zinc.
And so one of the challenges is that just giving
zinc isn't enough. You have to give enough zinc to
make the problem go away or manage it properly. And
(10:14):
we have probably sixty five seventy percent of farmers that
do not give enough zinc to help actually with the
problem at all. So, first of all, it's underrecognized, and
second of all, even though we're trying to treat it
or manage it, it's not working because we're not giving enough,
and most people don't realize that they're not giving enough.
(10:36):
And so as a general rule, it's a fairly poorly
managed disease.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, which is a real worry to hear, given how
many herds are we have in New Zealand, how many
cows we have in New Zealand. I also understand emma
that it's starting to appear and become an issue in
places where traditionally we haven't thought facial exma would get
to with the nature of what's happening with our climate.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
That's absolutely right. And so originally it really just started
up as sort of like a mid to top of
the North Island, and it's just been getting further and further.
There has always been reports of top of the South Island,
but it's you know, as opposed to just happening every
now and then, it's starting to happen more commonly. And
(11:23):
then I think in twenty sixteen we started seeing it
all on the west coast of the South Island, and
then after that we started seeing, you know, a few
cases start appearing in Canterbury. And so in the end,
it's a disease of the weather, and so it doesn't
really matter where it is. So if the weather is
warm enough and human enough, then you're going to see exma.
(11:46):
And so it just so happens that that's becoming more
common as we go down the country. Now what well,
the interesting thing will be is if it stays a
problem up in Northland as the temperature warms, you know,
if it ends up getting too hot, that ends up
not liking that either. So so either way, I think
the key message is that it's a problem that's not
(12:07):
going away. If anything, it's going to get worse. So
we really need to get on top of how it
gets managed.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
What does that look like, Emma, What should we be
looking at considering taking into account moving forward.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
That's a great question, and that really was my whole
masson so general. If I was to summarize it in
a sentence, it would be that we've got to start
making decisions on information. So part of the reason why
facial extment ends up being poorly managed is people are guessing.
They're guessing when to start their management and guessing when
(12:45):
to stop it. They're guessing that their management is working,
And there's ways to not guess anymore. That we can
actually make these decisions based on information. So if we
start from the start, the first thing is when do
I start my management program? Right, because that's a really
good way that it gets mucked up because the spot
(13:07):
counts sometimes rise up in November, and people still traditionally saying,
you know what, I've always started on the first of Febries,
and I'm going to start then that they've already had
three months of spores that they've ingested, right, And so
I think we need to reframe our thinking to say
that you start when the spores rise, and you can't
(13:28):
figure out when the spores rise until you're spot counting.
And so the general just is that you want to
be spot counting on your farm. It's really easy to
look at regional counts and think, oh, what's going on
with the XME around the area, and there's various regional counts.
Vetory clinics often do counts of various clients and that's
okay to have a look at those to see if
(13:49):
there's any movement, But you don't want to make any
decisions until you know what they are on your farm,
because your farm is absolutely and totally different to your
next door neighbors farm. And the reason why we know
this is we did a huge study on the variability
of spore counts, and so we had different paddocks on
different farms. We had different had various farms. We were
(14:13):
taking forty different samples within a paddock, and then we
were taking multiple grass samples within each of these points.
And essentially what we found out is that there's a
massive variability within a paddock, between a paddock and between
a farm.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So to keep things interesting, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
That's right. It makes it really hard. And so what
you do in the face of so much variability is
you keep it consistent. So you say, right, I'm going
to choose four paddocks on my farm, I'm going to
keep them the same, and I'm going to take a
cross section from one side to the other, and that
there becomes you're monitoring, right, So then the spot counts
start rising up. They're heading up twenty thirty, forty thousand.
(14:54):
You start your management program. Now, you don't have to
spore count the whole way through once you started, but
you do want a spore count before you stop. So
you do not stop doing your management program until the
spore counts are consistently low. That's another mistake people make
because what happens is they're like, oh, I'm going to
dry my cows off, and they maybe they're drenching zinc.
(15:15):
Maybe they're giving it in the feed and then they
still get ex even if they're not coming to the shed.
So you know, there's a lot of things like that.
So spore counting keeping this information number one. Information point
number two is is my management working. So for most
people who are giving zinc, that's when we say, okay,
(15:36):
you need to take some bloods or look at the
bulk milk, and that will tell you if you are
giving enough zinc to protect against facial exness, and then
you can work through with advisors or vets or whatever
to figure out, Okay, how do I increase it? What
am I doing wrong that makes my zinc so low?
So that's information step number two. Now, if you are
(15:59):
doing let's say funger fide spraying, you can do spore
counts to figure out if that's working. The only time
I probably wouldn't do blood zincs is if you are
relying on let's say the faceguard capsule. So that's a
different type of zinc, So bloods don't give you a
really good measure of that zinc or the other capsule,
(16:20):
the time capsule, they're very consistent. You probably also don't
need bloods in that snow. But generally speaking, bloodspog milk lets.
You know, if you management's working, you go along, you
fix it, sort that out, and you don't stop until
you just spore outs are low. So it's actually very simple.
But the key is that you want to collect information
(16:41):
and that's the thing. Once we take away the guessing,
then we can actually manage it properly.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I like what you're saying about making
sure you're testing on your farm, because how often after
you've been a bit dry, you've had some rain in
the region. Are you comparing with your neighbors? And the
amount of rain on each farm is vast different. Sometimes
you are the one with bragging rights. Sometimes you're very
envious of your neighbors. So even within regions, there's such variations,
(17:08):
isn't there?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh it's absolutely crazy. And you know, even to the
point within a paddock, you know that that just shows
how it is. So I when we were taking these
forecaumts on one corner of the paddock, we had a
zero count and I kid you not, I'd say forty
steps away was a six hundred thousand count.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
So and that's just within a paddock, littlone between barbs. Yeah, right,
and so it's it's just so horrendously variable between farms
and there's lots of things we don't know about why
that is the case. I have a lot of people
be loved, but why, you know, is it my pastor
is it my soil? Is it is it the health
of the soil? And to be honest, I don't know.
(17:49):
Maybe there's so much more to it than just straight,
you know, conditions. But what I do know is that
the microclimate where the funguses makes a huge difference. Right,
So where we are it might feel warm and it
might feel humid, but what matters is what's happening down
in the pasture and that environment, whether there's trees or
(18:10):
depending on the direction of the paddock or hedges, is
different depending on the paddock and the farm, and that
changes what's going on with the fungus and what it likes.
And so that's why we just cannot rely on someone
else's count to make management decisions.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Absolutely. Anything else to add that you think might be
relevant around facial exment.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, I think the only thing is that we did
a recent study, well it'd be eighteen months ago now,
where we were looking at giving zinc in the water. Now,
this is the most common method that farmers use, and
it has been decreasing over time, thank goodness. But one
(18:54):
of the things that we found was that if you
wrenched animals. So if I put the zinc kepto hydrate
or monohydrate and a syringe with water and put it
down their throat, it absolutely worked to get the zincs
up the blood zinc up as we would expect, as
(19:15):
soon as you put it in a trough where the
cow starts controlling what she's drinking, they change what they're
drinking every day depending on their production, whether a hierarchy.
We could not get enough zinc into them. Wow by
the trough. Now that has been shown in almost every
study I have ever been involved with over fifty years.
(19:37):
It is very, very difficult to get animals to take
in enough zinc from a trough. So what I guess
the final thing I would say is, if you are
giving zinc in a trough and you start doing bloods
to try and see if it's working, prepare yourself for that,
because most likely will not be so. And if it's not,
(19:58):
that's what you've got to say. All right, this is
an important enough disease. How am I going to change
how I give this? You know, is it possible to
give it on a feedpad? Is it possible to give
it an inn shed feeding? If not, you might want
to consider capsules. So there's it's more just preparation in
your head that once you start testing, if you're giving
it in the water, just prepare yourself for it being
(20:22):
almost impossible to get enough think into them.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Absolutely, and look, there's more information on everything that we've
discussed today up on the Alandco website. You can head
to Farmanimal dot lanco dot com. Forward slash and z
are Emma Cuttent's managing director of Epivets Limited, thank you
so much for your time today. You've explained things in
a way that's so easy to understand and actually managed
(20:47):
to reinforce the importance of why every step has to
be considered when we're trying to shut the gate on
facial ex man I really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Shut the gate on facial X with faceguard from Ilanko,
powered by the Country
Shut the Gate on Facial Expert with Faceguard from Ilanco
powered by the Country.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, hello and welcome into this special edition podcast. My
name is Rowena Duncan, your host for today and we
are looking at how to shut the Gate on facial
x meer thanks to Faceguard by Alanco joining me today
to be our expert commentator. Here as Emma Cuttin's Managing
director of EPI Vets Limited. Hello, Emo, welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Thank you, I mean to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm so glad you are because I'm really looking forward
to picking your brains on this subject. Being a former
dairy farmer myself, I hate facial exmert with a vengeance.
Being a vet yourself, I imagine you do as well.
Tell me before we get underway, tell me a bit
about yourself, your background and what you do.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Great. So, I originally actually was a production animal vet.
I started in Tiawa Mutu in two thousand and seven,
really got into it, loved it, and throughout that really
got into her health and you know, really interested at
the farm level stuff. Now very early on, because it
(01:10):
was two thousand and seven when I started, it hit
into two thousand and eight and that just happened to
be a really bad facial x men year. I remember
it well, and farmers were just pulling their hair out.
There were clinical facial ex macals everywhere, and I remember
sitting with a colleague of mine and just being like,
we've got to do this better. We've got to be
(01:31):
able to advise farmers better. And that, to be honest,
started this big journey for me within my career of
looking at facial x mera and we started doing a
number of trials and trying to manage it better for
our clients, and that ended up coincidentally leading into master's
inventory science, and so I did that, majoring in epidemiology.
(01:52):
You know, just a little side note of what that is,
because that's a ridiculous word. It's really the study of
disease and populations. And so when COVID came out, all
the epidemiologists seemed to come out of their caves all
of a sudden. Everybody knew what an epidemiologist was. So
but generally speaking, we're looking at the study of population
in a particular disease. In my instance, so I did
(02:15):
my masters actually on management of facial EXNA and from
that point we just did back to back years on
different studies to do with management of facial exa and
why it's all falling. Apart from there, it expanded into
I ended up doing a PhD. Not on facial x men.
I ended up doing it on calves and I love
passive transfer. And in amongst all of this it's sort
(02:37):
of not a straight timeline. We ended up myself and
a friend of mine started doing research more commonly within
the Venory practice that we were in, and we started
a research division and that grew and grew, and we
ended up with about five of us in this research
division that became our sole job. Then it just shy
of three years ago we split away from the new
(03:00):
practice that we were in and we set up Epivets.
And so Epivets is a research and epidemiology business. We
have to say fourteen of us now in New Zealand.
We have a business in Australia and we do a
lot of research, statistical analysis, disease modeling, regulatory work, trying
(03:21):
to get products to market and so that's now the business.
So research now is my gig.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, amazing, And this all came from a seminal moment
back in was it two thousand and eight around facial excella.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
That's right, and that's what's set off. To be honest,
my research career was trying to figure out how can
we do this better with facial excema. There has to
be another way, and that's why this disease is super
special for me because of how it actually changed my
whole career fantastic.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, I'm so glad Alanko suggested you as my talent
for today. I'm looking forward to this conversation for people
who might be newer to the industry because we all
start somewhere. Let's go back to the basics before we
get into it. What is facial xner cool?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
You know, the crazy thing about facial x meer is
it's got the most ridiculous name. It's not it's not
actually the ex mera and it's not on the face.
So the actual true name of it is piper microtoxicosis,
but no one's going to want to know that, right.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I can't even say it lexn I know.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I don't now what it is is. It's actually a
disease of the liver. So what happens is there's a
fungus that loves to grow in new Zealand and a
few other countries, but it's it's particular to us, and
it produces a spare and that spore has a toxin
in it called sporid esmond. Now, that spore gets produced
(04:51):
when the weather is warm and humid, right, So that's
why often the North Island is very popular for this
disease because we get that warm and humid weather. When
that happens, the fungus is so happy and it spiralates
that it releases all these spores with the toxin in it. Now,
this fungus is growing on dead and dyeing matter in
(05:12):
the pasture, right, So if you've got any of that
sort of dead base or even a dying leaf, that's
where that's where the fungus is. You can't see it
but with the naked eye, but it's there. Now, what
happens is the animals eat this and that spore releases
its toxin and it causes there. I won't go into
(05:32):
the detail of it, but let's just say for simplicity,
it causes liver damage. Now, the thing with the liver
is that there are lots of It has many, many
different functions, right, and so it's a it's a building block.
So when they eat various nutrients, fats and proteins, it
directs it to different parts of the bodies, to the
(05:53):
other or making muscle or whatever. But the liver is
also a waste disposal plant, and so when they they
have things, it is the same with humans. When we
need to get rid of something, we do that through
the bile ducts of the liver, and in particular with ruminants,
they are eating grass right now, grass has chlorophyll in it,
(06:14):
the bit that makes it green, and the breakdown products
of chlorophyl need to get out of their system. Now,
when the liver is damaged, this particular toxin damages the
bile ducks, so it can no longer work as a
waste disposal system very effectively. So these breakdown products of
grass end up circulating in the blood. Now, for some animals,
(06:39):
that reacts with the sunlight on the light colored areas
of the animal, and it can cause photosensitivity, and that's
when you get the peeling skin and they get swollen,
and they get irritable odds and all that sort of stuff.
But the key thing about the disease, and this is
probably the most crucial thing, is that that only happens
(07:00):
in about five percent of animals, so everyone thinks, oh,
facial expert, it's all about peeling skin, and you see
these horrific photos of very sore animals, and that's just
truly the tip of the iceberg, because the liver damage
is causing a lot of other problems, and that's largely
to do with production, so they produce a lot less milk,
or for beef cattle, they don't grow as well, or
(07:24):
potentially getting calf as well, and things like that. Same
with sheep, steppins and sheep as well, So that's ultimately
what the disease is. So fungus causes damage to the liver,
and the liver damage has many problems that then affect
how they produce and perform in a herd or a flock.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, you can see why facial XMA is such an
issue for farmers and animals and for the whole industry. EMMA.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
It's the massive issue, and the scary thing about it
is that it is underrecognized, right, so you have a
lot of people knowing that it's going on. But I
still think one of the biggest issues is that when
we're asking farmers saying, hey, have you had a problem
this year? How's you heard going? Most people will say, oh, no,
it's fine, I haven't seen any animals, or yep, it's fine,
(08:16):
I've only had one that looks a little bit further sensitive.
But the problem is is that if you're seeing one,
you've probably got many of the herd that actually have
significant liver damage. And so it's a problem in the
industry that is really underrecognized. That's causing a lot of
production loss.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah. Yeah, a really scary prospect. Kigrey farmers managing the disease.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Emma, I'd love to say yes, that the honest answer
is no. And the reason for that, I mean, there's many,
many reasons, but the primary reason is the one that
I've just said before is that it's underrecognized, so people
don't realize that they have an issue unless they start
doing things like blood testing to see if that's got damage.
(09:05):
Now we've got a lot of people managing it or
attempting to manage it. So certainly up in the areas
where it's more common, which is the North Island or
the top of the South Island, most people are doing
something which is usually giving zinc or some people are
breeding to help get rid of it. Some people are
(09:27):
using fungicides, but the majority of people manage it by
giving it zinc, by giving sorry that the animal zinc
in some way. But the worrying part about this is
that zinc works. There's no two ways about it. It
works right, so it actually attaches to the toxin and
it stabilizes the toxin so the toxin doesn't end up
(09:50):
going through these sort of oxidation reduction reactions, which is
part of how it does it's damage. So the zinc works,
but you have to absolutely saturate the molecule with zinc.
And so one of the challenges is that just giving
zinc isn't enough. You have to give enough zinc to
make the problem go away or manage it properly. And
(10:14):
we have probably sixty five seventy percent of farmers that
do not give enough zinc to help actually with the
problem at all. So, first of all, it's underrecognized, and
second of all, even though we're trying to treat it
or manage it, it's not working because we're not giving enough,
and most people don't realize that they're not giving enough.
(10:36):
And so as a general rule, it's a fairly poorly
managed disease.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, which is a real worry to hear, given how
many herds are we have in New Zealand, how many
cows we have in New Zealand. I also understand emma
that it's starting to appear and become an issue in
places where traditionally we haven't thought facial exma would get
to with the nature of what's happening with our climate.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
That's absolutely right. And so originally it really just started
up as sort of like a mid to top of
the North Island, and it's just been getting further and further.
There has always been reports of top of the South Island,
but it's you know, as opposed to just happening every
now and then, it's starting to happen more commonly. And
(11:23):
then I think in twenty sixteen we started seeing it
all on the west coast of the South Island, and
then after that we started seeing, you know, a few
cases start appearing in Canterbury. And so in the end,
it's a disease of the weather, and so it doesn't
really matter where it is. So if the weather is
warm enough and human enough, then you're going to see exma.
(11:46):
And so it just so happens that that's becoming more
common as we go down the country. Now what well,
the interesting thing will be is if it stays a
problem up in Northland as the temperature warms, you know,
if it ends up getting too hot, that ends up
not liking that either. So so either way, I think
the key message is that it's a problem that's not
(12:07):
going away. If anything, it's going to get worse. So
we really need to get on top of how it
gets managed.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
What does that look like, Emma, What should we be
looking at considering taking into account moving forward.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
That's a great question, and that really was my whole
masson so general. If I was to summarize it in
a sentence, it would be that we've got to start
making decisions on information. So part of the reason why
facial extment ends up being poorly managed is people are guessing.
They're guessing when to start their management and guessing when
(12:45):
to stop it. They're guessing that their management is working,
And there's ways to not guess anymore. That we can
actually make these decisions based on information. So if we
start from the start, the first thing is when do
I start my management program? Right, because that's a really
good way that it gets mucked up because the spot
(13:07):
counts sometimes rise up in November, and people still traditionally saying,
you know what, I've always started on the first of Febries,
and I'm going to start then that they've already had
three months of spores that they've ingested, right, And so
I think we need to reframe our thinking to say
that you start when the spores rise, and you can't
(13:28):
figure out when the spores rise until you're spot counting.
And so the general just is that you want to
be spot counting on your farm. It's really easy to
look at regional counts and think, oh, what's going on
with the XME around the area, and there's various regional counts.
Vetory clinics often do counts of various clients and that's
okay to have a look at those to see if
(13:49):
there's any movement, But you don't want to make any
decisions until you know what they are on your farm,
because your farm is absolutely and totally different to your
next door neighbors farm. And the reason why we know
this is we did a huge study on the variability
of spore counts, and so we had different paddocks on
different farms. We had different had various farms. We were
(14:13):
taking forty different samples within a paddock, and then we
were taking multiple grass samples within each of these points.
And essentially what we found out is that there's a
massive variability within a paddock, between a paddock and between
a farm.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So to keep things interesting, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
That's right. It makes it really hard. And so what
you do in the face of so much variability is
you keep it consistent. So you say, right, I'm going
to choose four paddocks on my farm, I'm going to
keep them the same, and I'm going to take a
cross section from one side to the other, and that
there becomes you're monitoring, right, So then the spot counts
start rising up. They're heading up twenty thirty, forty thousand.
(14:54):
You start your management program. Now, you don't have to
spore count the whole way through once you started, but
you do want a spore count before you stop. So
you do not stop doing your management program until the
spore counts are consistently low. That's another mistake people make
because what happens is they're like, oh, I'm going to
dry my cows off, and they maybe they're drenching zinc.
(15:15):
Maybe they're giving it in the feed and then they
still get ex even if they're not coming to the shed.
So you know, there's a lot of things like that.
So spore counting keeping this information number one. Information point
number two is is my management working. So for most
people who are giving zinc, that's when we say, okay,
(15:36):
you need to take some bloods or look at the
bulk milk, and that will tell you if you are
giving enough zinc to protect against facial exness, and then
you can work through with advisors or vets or whatever
to figure out, Okay, how do I increase it? What
am I doing wrong that makes my zinc so low?
So that's information step number two. Now, if you are
(15:59):
doing let's say funger fide spraying, you can do spore
counts to figure out if that's working. The only time
I probably wouldn't do blood zincs is if you are
relying on let's say the faceguard capsule. So that's a
different type of zinc, So bloods don't give you a
really good measure of that zinc or the other capsule,
(16:20):
the time capsule, they're very consistent. You probably also don't
need bloods in that snow. But generally speaking, bloodspog milk lets.
You know, if you management's working, you go along, you
fix it, sort that out, and you don't stop until
you just spore outs are low. So it's actually very simple.
But the key is that you want to collect information
(16:41):
and that's the thing. Once we take away the guessing,
then we can actually manage it properly.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I like what you're saying about making
sure you're testing on your farm, because how often after
you've been a bit dry, you've had some rain in
the region. Are you comparing with your neighbors? And the
amount of rain on each farm is vast different. Sometimes
you are the one with bragging rights. Sometimes you're very
envious of your neighbors. So even within regions, there's such variations,
(17:08):
isn't there?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh it's absolutely crazy. And you know, even to the
point within a paddock, you know that that just shows
how it is. So I when we were taking these
forecaumts on one corner of the paddock, we had a
zero count and I kid you not, I'd say forty
steps away was a six hundred thousand count.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
So and that's just within a paddock, littlone between barbs. Yeah, right,
and so it's it's just so horrendously variable between farms
and there's lots of things we don't know about why
that is the case. I have a lot of people
be loved, but why, you know, is it my pastor
is it my soil? Is it is it the health
of the soil? And to be honest, I don't know.
(17:49):
Maybe there's so much more to it than just straight,
you know, conditions. But what I do know is that
the microclimate where the funguses makes a huge difference. Right,
So where we are it might feel warm and it
might feel humid, but what matters is what's happening down
in the pasture and that environment, whether there's trees or
(18:10):
depending on the direction of the paddock or hedges, is
different depending on the paddock and the farm, and that
changes what's going on with the fungus and what it likes.
And so that's why we just cannot rely on someone
else's count to make management decisions.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Absolutely. Anything else to add that you think might be
relevant around facial exment.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, I think the only thing is that we did
a recent study, well it'd be eighteen months ago now,
where we were looking at giving zinc in the water. Now,
this is the most common method that farmers use, and
it has been decreasing over time, thank goodness. But one
(18:54):
of the things that we found was that if you
wrenched animals. So if I put the zinc kepto hydrate
or monohydrate and a syringe with water and put it
down their throat, it absolutely worked to get the zincs
up the blood zinc up as we would expect, as
(19:15):
soon as you put it in a trough where the
cow starts controlling what she's drinking, they change what they're
drinking every day depending on their production, whether a hierarchy.
We could not get enough zinc into them. Wow by
the trough. Now that has been shown in almost every
study I have ever been involved with over fifty years.
(19:37):
It is very, very difficult to get animals to take
in enough zinc from a trough. So what I guess
the final thing I would say is, if you are
giving zinc in a trough and you start doing bloods
to try and see if it's working, prepare yourself for that,
because most likely will not be so. And if it's not,
(19:58):
that's what you've got to say. All right, this is
an important enough disease. How am I going to change
how I give this? You know, is it possible to
give it on a feedpad? Is it possible to give
it an inn shed feeding? If not, you might want
to consider capsules. So there's it's more just preparation in
your head that once you start testing, if you're giving
it in the water, just prepare yourself for it being
(20:22):
almost impossible to get enough think into them.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Absolutely, and look, there's more information on everything that we've
discussed today up on the Alandco website. You can head
to Farmanimal dot lanco dot com. Forward slash and z
are Emma Cuttent's managing director of Epivets Limited, thank you
so much for your time today. You've explained things in
a way that's so easy to understand and actually managed
(20:47):
to reinforce the importance of why every step has to
be considered when we're trying to shut the gate on
facial ex man I really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Shut the gate on facial X with faceguard from Ilanko,
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