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KEEP A CLOSE WATCH ON LIVER LUKE THIS AUTUMN 2025

Liver Fluke is a parasitic worm that causes serious economic losses in all stock. Farmers have to contend with two types of liver fluke – common liver fluke and giant liver fluke.


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Wetlands, springs, cultivated pastures, rain and heat all create an ideal breeding ground for liver fluke. These parasites occur throughout Southern Africa, with their numbers rising especially in late summer and autumn after good rainy season. Live fluke depend on fresh water snails as intermediate hosts to complete their life cycle. The presence of fresh water snails therefore usually spells disaster for livestock in and around leaking drinking troughs and low lying areas where water is stationery in puddles.


Adult and immature liver fluke are harmful to both humans and animals. Adult flukes can lead to chronic production losses or acute mortalities in livestock, whereas migrating, immature fluke larva causes infestations in livestock when ingested with plants and water.



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Signs of Infestation. The signs of liver fluke infestation vary, depending on how heavy the load is and how long animals have been exposed to liver flukes. Cattle can build up some resistance to liver fluke, but it depends on the load of fresh water snails or liver s in the infested area. In the case of chronic infestations animal can develop bottle jaw and a coarse hairy coat. Sudden death accompanied by abdominal bleeding can occur, and infected cows will typically lack fertility and produce less milk. In acute cases, where the liver fluke load is high, sudden death can occur. This is due to the parasite migrating through the organs and blood vessel, causing bleeding due to the parasite’s presence in the animal’s body.


In sub-acute cases, where animals are exposed to high load for a few weeks, liver damage can occur due to immature liver fluke migrating through the body. This will lead to protein deficiencies, reduced blood clotting factors and a hormonal imbalance, as well as poor conception and animals that fail to enter oestrus cycle. In chronic cases, where animals exposed to heavy loads of liver fluke for several weeks treatment maybe too late due to liver damage leading to condition loss and substandard performance. Their coat may also appear coarse once this stage is reached.


The liver is one of the most vital organs as it regulates hormone functions, blood & proteins within the body. A damaged liver can impair growth hormones & oestrus cycles within the animal. A steer in a feedlot that typically does not gain weight, even with the right supplementation and treatment in the feedlot, is a good example of liver damage caused early on in life.


Strategic Treatments

Preventative treatments need to be carried out three times a year;

  1. In Spring (September / October)

  2. in mid-Summer (November / December)

  3. in Autumn (April / May) each year

Most products only control the adult Liver Fluke so for the reason of dosing three times a year to control the immature larval stages when they become adults.


When buying products to dose your animals for Liver Fluke, make sure the product’s active ingriendent is registered to control Liver flukes & larval stages of Liver Fluke. It is always a good practice to alternate the products used to stop resistance taking place.


Economic Impact of Liver Fluke:

  • Reduced growth Rate (Average weight gain per day) in feedlots

  • Reduced milk production up to 1 kg per day

  • Suppresses Butterfat Percentage in Milk (%)

  • Reduces Fertility in cows

  • Liver condemnation at the abattoir

  • Increased mortality of all stock

  • Secondary bacterial infection rates increase due to internal bleeding.


© 2025 Diccon Robinson. All rights reserved. This blog post on khubatraders.com is the intellectual property of Diccon Robinson. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author via khubatraders.com.


 
 
 

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