 I'm Dr Mary Carr, Chief Veterinary Officer of South Australia and I'm pleased to welcome you to the Red Meat and Wool Growth Programme production brought to you by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions, Livestock SA, Animal Health Australia and the University of Adelaide. Today we are exploring the Enhanced Abattoir Surveillance Programme with a focus on sheep measles. Enhanced Abattoir Surveillance tracks the health conditions of sheep found at the abattoir. These findings are provided to producers to assist with planning around prevention and management of prevalent animal health conditions. Sheep measles is a common condition found in South Australian abattoirs. Over the last three years, two in every five properties and one in every five consignment had animals slaughtered presenting cases of sheep measles. At the animal level, one in every 50 animal would have sheep measles. Since the inception of the Enhanced Abattoir Surveillance Programme in 2007, the case of sheep measles found in abattoir has been steadily decreasing with a historical low in 2020. The detection of sheep measles is more likely in muttons than in lamb. This can be explained by the cumulative risk to be exposed to the parasite with age and time. We also see that most of the sheep measles cases are coming from the greater Southeast region in the States. Although there is not a strong seasonality apparent in muttons, we can see a drop in cases of sheep measles in lambs slaughtered during spring. Sheep measles or more technically known as sea ovus or sister circus ovus is a cyst which are really only the size of your small fingernail that forms primarily in the diaphragm and brisket of affected sheep. Sheep measles is primarily the intermediate stage of the dog tapeworm and especially for example the high data tapeworm when the dogs contaminate pasture with feces, sheep get access to the intermediate stage and that results in the cysts in the mussel and sheep. Potentially foxes are also a spreader of the disease but it's not generally recognised that foxes are a big issue or for that matter dingoes. Primarily if you can control the tapeworm in the dog you're probably going to largely reduce the risk of any condemnation in the abattoir because of sea ovus or sheep measles. There are really no welfare concerns for sheep measles in that the cysts that form in the diaphragm and brisket are really inadvertent. They're obviously not obvious to the producer and you only need to have those few as five cysts which will result in total carcass condemnation. Sheep measles is found mostly in the heart, the diaphragm, the abdominal wall but can be through the entire carcass. The inspectors are trained to look primarily in the heart and then they're trained to palpate the entire interior muscles of the carcass to see whether they can detect any sheep measles or ovus in the carcass. We've had EAS data numerous times come back and that gave us some information on a few problems that we had in our livestock, one being ovus or sheep measles. Wasn't highly prevalent but we always knew it was there because it always seemed to come back every time we sent stuff away. Up until two years ago it didn't actually cost us a lot only in trying to worm dogs properly and keep it under control that way but two years ago throughout the lamb selling season we had 17 lambs condemned so that was a red flag for us to change our practices and do something about it. We researched it and looked at the life cycle of the tapeworm and basically decided that if we could break that life cycle on farm we would get a lower prevalence of ovus. 18 months ago we dug a pit seven meters deep on a limestone hill and fenced it off and we tried to put all our dead stock in that hole. We take all the food away from foxes and that will then break the life cycle of the tapeworm. Pitting all our dead livestock has taken a stand to two condemned last year and that was right at the start of our lamb selling and then we had no more condemns. This year I'm reasonably confident that we'll have no condemns but we'll wait and see. So management and treatment options for sheep measles really don't have any option other than to control the parasite in its adult stage in the dog. Ensuring that the dogs are treated at least every six weeks for tapeworms and of course we're including high data tapeworm there which is of human health certificates. If animals get wormed regularly and it should include prosyquantil which is the particularly the one for high data tapeworm we won't see sheep measles occurring in lambs or adult carcasses. The other issue is that some people do like to feed offal or carcasses to their dogs that they either need to be frozen for at least 20 days that destroys the parasitic cyst in the in the carcass or in the offal and alternatively that the carcass or the offal needs to be heated or cooked to the same extent as you would your lamb roast to destroy the parasitic cyst so it can't be passed on and develop into an adult tapeworm in the dog. So we got enhanced avatar surveillance data and this showed us that we had ovis once we got to the point where we were getting condemns we had to upscale our efforts to to beat the sheep measles so that's when we dug the pit and have noticed a dramatic difference since then. Between 2007 and 2021 the Department of Primary Industries and Regions managed the enhanced avatar surveillance program at Lobothall and Murray Bridge with funding from estate and national sheep industry funds and national industry funding from meat and livestock Australia. It was the EAS program that provided producers with the feedback discussed in this video. Although EAS monitoring has ceased there are plans in place to transition to entering South Australian data into the national system. This national data can inform the development and funding of appropriate industry and government initiatives on the ground to better support South Australian producers to reduce losses caused by unnecessary carcass trimming and to take advantage of premium markets. To assist producers animal health Australia has partnered with PERSA to create the sheep health conditions carcass impacts tool a 3d digital tool designed to show the industry what six common conditions look like on a carcass and give them an idea of how much trim may occur at the processor. Livestock SA encourages all producers to talk to their processors about what carcass and disease and condition data they can access from their consignments. Thanks for watching we hope you have learned more about sheep measles and the importance of managing sheep health with the help of enhanced avatar surveillance. To find out more or get support with your business contact your local animal health advisor from the Department of Primary Industries and Regions or the South Australian Livestock Biosecurity Extension Team through the Livestock SA office. The red meat and wool growth program is an initiative of the Government of South Australia and supported by Meat and Livestock Australia the South Australian sheep and cattle industry funds and Sheep Connect SA.