A new research project could lay the foundation for easing the growing problem of pneumonia impacting Australian sheep flocks.
Pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae is emerging as a serious production and welfare risk in Victorian sheep flocks and the new Meat & Livestock Australia-funded research aims to document its spread and understand the on-farm risk factors.
Victoria’s sheep producers can help the research by completing a survey before the end of September.
The research is being led by Dynamic Ag principal consultant and director, Steve Cotton, who said it would address a major challenge facing the sheep industry.
“Pneumonia is a significant cost to the industry with production losses, treatment costs and welfare concerns across Australia,” Dr Cotton said.
“There are many different forms of pneumonia but this project aims to identify the prevalence of the Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, which seems to be a particular problem in grazing sheep.
“Once we get a handle on that information, we can design strategies and management practices to avoid or reduce the risk.”
Dr Cotton said the project would determine if Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae is more prevalent in different breeds of sheep or in flocks that lamb and wean at different times of the year.
“The survey data will inform that and we aim to randomly select 50 of the businesses who respond to the survey this year and another 50 next year to collect nasal swabs from post-weaning lambs for analysis.”
Nearly 300 farmers have responded to the survey so far but the researchers hope to get more than 500 responses before the end of September.
“The more responses we get, the better the data analysis will be,” Dr Cotton said.
Co-investigator on the project, veterinarian Joan Lloyd, is collecting and analysing abattoir samples and will analyse Dr Cotton’s farm samples. Mathematician Gavin Kearney will provide a statistical analysis.
Dr Cotton said farmers were becoming increasingly frustrated at the re-occurrence of pneumonia across multiple years despite changes in management to reduce or avoid the disease.
He said many farmers don’t realise their sheep have the disease unless they experience higher than usual mortalities, receive abattoir feedback or through post mortem examination.
Farmers can access the survey at: https://forms.gle/3WXm9xqZKG7qGa4Z9