Be prepared for preventing blowfly strike
Early prevention of blowfly strike is essential to taking control and reducing health and welfare losses. Be prepared by receiving Blowfly Watch Alerts and checking the Blowfly Risk Forecast and prevent blowfly strike in your flock.
Blowfly Watch Alerts
Our Blowfly Watch email alerts provide sheep farmers with timely, targeted insights into the level of blowfly risk in the farm's area, so you can prevent blowfly strike in your sheep with early preventative treatment.
Blowfly Risk Forecast
Developed in conjunction with NADIS, the blowfly risk forecast uses Met Office weather data to predict the emergence of blowflies and therefore the level of risk relating to the number of animals which might be affected by blowfly strike within 40km2 grids across the UK.
Level of national risk of blowfly strike:
Current risk: Medium
The current conditions suggest that flies are still alive and present in the environment, and any period of warm weather could trigger late strikes. However, the falling temperatures mean that the strike risk is now becoming relatively low, and in northern and upland areas, it is likely to be close to zero. In lowland areas, some strike risk will remain until temperatures consistently fall below approximately 11°C. This could potentially result in strikes throughout October in southern and central England.
Carcasses, dirty backends, foot rot lesions and open wounds are all attractive egg laying sites. Strike can develop very quickly, with the first maggots appearing within 12 hours of eggs being laid.
Be prepared: It is crucial to plan to protect animals against flystrike.
Check the number of strikes reported with our Blowfly Tracker.
Check the level of blowfly risk in your area:
Strike first against blowfly
Sources and acknowledgements
The model used to generate these predictions uses Met Office recordings of daily temperatures and rainfall, along with a detailed understanding of fly biology and sheep susceptibility to strike, to forecast the patterns of strike incidence. The model is highly accurate and tests have shown that it can effectively explain patterns of strike in sheep flocks1,2.
The risk level relates to the number of affected sheep expected collectively for all flocks in a region – and the expectation is that most of these sheep would be treated. If sheep were all untreated, incidences would be about 10x higher than the predictions. Each predicted strike level relates to the period from one update to the next.
Risk data provided by Professor Richard Wall BSc, MBA, PhD from the University of Bristol.
- Wall et al, 2000, Sheep blowfly strike: a model approach. Res Vet Sci, 69, 1-9.
- Wall et al, 2002, Development and validation of a simulation model for sheep blowfly strike. Med Vet Entomol., 16, 335-346
