SAM WORRAD<\/strong>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPA) and the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) have advised flood-hit communities to be prepared for animal welfare issues. DPI Bourke’s veterinary officer Charlotte Cavanagh, said a number of ailments become more prevalent in wet conditions. \u201cWhen the floods are on, a lot of animals are standing in water, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[603,734,578,265,736,735,732,731,737,154,714,113,122,733],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-603","tag-australian-veterinary-association","tag-ava","tag-barry-smyth","tag-bourke","tag-charlotte-cavanagh","tag-dpa","tag-flooding","tag-hazards","tag-livestock","tag-march-2012","tag-news-2","tag-nsw","tag-nsw-department-of-primary-industries"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":415,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":415,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPA) and the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) have advised flood-hit communities to be prepared for animal welfare issues. DPI Bourke’s veterinary officer Charlotte Cavanagh, said a number of ailments become more prevalent in wet conditions. \u201cWhen the floods are on, a lot of animals are standing in water, so hooves become softened, which can..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"603":{"name":"2012","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=2012"},"734":{"name":"Australian Veterinary Association","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=australian-veterinary-association"},"578":{"name":"AVA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=ava"},"265":{"name":"Barry Smyth","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=barry-smyth"},"736":{"name":"Bourke","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=bourke"},"735":{"name":"Charlotte Cavanagh","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=charlotte-cavanagh"},"732":{"name":"DPA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=dpa"},"731":{"name":"flooding","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=flooding"},"737":{"name":"hazards","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=hazards"},"154":{"name":"livestock","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=livestock"},"714":{"name":"March 2012","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=march-2012"},"113":{"name":"news","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=news-2"},"122":{"name":"NSW","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=nsw"},"733":{"name":"NSW Department of Primary Industries","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=nsw-department-of-primary-industries"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPA) and the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) have advised flood-hit communities to be prepared for animal welfare issues.\r\n\r\nDPI Bourke’s veterinary officer Charlotte Cavanagh, said a number of ailments become more prevalent in wet conditions.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen the floods are on, a lot of animals are standing in water, so hooves become softened, which can lead the way to foot abscesses, especially when access to stock becomes limited due to the water,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nCavanagh said the combination of flooding and warm weather could also pose problems. \u201cThe big thing I have been putting warnings out about out here is that with hot weather there is a big increased risk of internal parasites and fly-strike in sheep,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt’s worm time anyway, and a lot of stock were lost last year to Barber’s Pole worm. With all this wet weather and lack of access, it’s important to remember that those worms can lay 10,000 eggs per day.\u201d\r\n\r\nCavanagh said that continued stock checks are required to check for mosquito spread diseases, bovine ephemeral fever (three day sickness), fleece rot, buffalo fly, sand flies, pneumonia, dermatophilosis, diarrhoea, pulpy kidney, pink eye, as well as ailments afflicting companion animals.\r\n\r\n\u201cPet owners should definitely keep an eye out for heartworm in these conditions,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nAVA President Barry Smyth, said preparing ahead of time and acting quickly is critical.\r\n\r\n\u201cBe prepared for possible disruption to services, including power, water and phone lines for extended periods of time. Bring pets inside and move horses and livestock to safe ground,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nThe AVA made a number of suggestions to livestock and horse owners, including securing all loose objects, and to make sure horses and livestock have access to a safe food and water source.\r\n\r\nThe AVA also suggested that the reliance on automatic feeding systems can be hazardous as power may be lost.\r\n\r\nFlood-stricken fields of NSW have also seen large amounts of the usually ground-dwelling and anti-social wolf spider.\r\n\r\nIn an effort to escape rising water, wolf spiders have been climbing grass en masse and letting out vast webs.\r\n\r\nScientists claim they are doing so in the hope that strong winds will catch them and transport them to a more habitable location, a practice known as \u201cballooning\u201d.\r\n\r\nIn coastal areas there is concern that deoxygenated water re-entering rivers via flood plains can affect oxygen levels, with the potential to suffocate fish and other animals.\r\n\r\nThough initial tests show the current floods have not caused large losses of life, Southern Cross University researcher Damien Maher said in extreme cases it can kill all the creatures living in the water.\r\n\r\nMaher told AAP that the full extent of the damage from the current floods will not be known until the waters subside.\r\n\r\nInformation about protecting pets and livestock is also available on the