Effect of treatment with netobimin on milk production of sheep.

In the Basque country lambing takes place during winter, followed by milking until late spring or summer, so it was considered that this would be the most profitable period for deworming, when there was an increased production pressure on ewes with depressed immune status owing to the peri-parturient relaxation of immunity. The drug employed was netobimin, and the trial was carried out in 22 commercial flocks, in each of which ewes were allocated to one of three similar groups. One group was left as a non-treated control (T0), the second was dosed 15 days before parturition (T1), and the remaining group dosed both at 15 days before and 15 days after lambing (T2). Mean total milk production in the T2 group increased by 8.8 and 6.3% in the second and third month post-partum, respectively, compared with that of the controls (T0), while over the standard lactation period of 120 days the T2 group showed a significant (8.9%) increase in production compared with the controls. The T1 group did not significantly differ from T0. The market value of the increase in milk production was calculated to be approximately 700% of the cost of treatment with netobimin.