Sorry, this took a while until I got to talk sheep with my sister. She told me a whole lot and I try my best to share:

She clearly stated that if you do nothing you will fail and have losses due to parasites. Sheep just attract so many and if not given the right circumstances can’t defend themselves. So this is what she is doing and aiming for (and what I can remember):

System

Since most parasites seem to live/wait close to the ground, you should move the livestock out of the pasture before they start eating close to the ground and take up all the parasite eggs. As many holistic or rotational grazers state, dung beetles and others will show up again, they eat those eggs and relieve you of some parasite pressure that way. I guess your slugs might be a reversed situation of this. She also has some success in the dry periods with holistic/rotational pasture management just growing enough food.

Genetics

It is always the same sheep that need extra treatment due to parasites, year after year. They also seem to pass this on to their offsprings, her guess is that 30% of the problem is genetics. Even though she wants to increase her flock size she started to take out the non resistant sheep. But she doesn’t have long term results for this yet. 20% of the flock seems to host 80% of the parasites.

The base nutrition

Since summer drought is an issue in her area she started experimenting with chicory (Cichorium intybus). It turned out this is a very good plant for parasite control since the high amount of tannin block the parasites digestion and they basically explode. She moves onto the chicory for 5-6 days every 3-4 weeks. Staying shorter than 3 days on the chicory still gives results but not good enough. If chicory gets too old, the sheep don’t like to eat it anymore though, so you have to plan this. She did mention that they eat very old chicory (like flowering) again.

Herbs

Since not only chicory contains tannins (or other good stuff) diversity on the pasture is a main goal, so all herbs you can establish are a good thing. We try to implement a lot of herbs in our clover grass mixtures here in Sweden so we made a list of herbs to add to the regular pastures which she agreed on. Always the most wild form/variety you can get your hands on: (I hope I get the english names somewhat right):

• ?burnet? (Sanguisorba minor)
• parsnip (Pastinaca sativa)
• parsley (Petroselinum sativum L.)
• plaintain (Plantago lanceolata)
• caraway (Carum carvi)
• chicory (Cichorium intybus)
• yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
• ??? (Pimpinella saxifraga)
• satureja (Satureja montana)
• flax (Linum usitatissimum)
• …

Leaves

The property my sister farms on was abandoned for some time in the 90s, so blackberries, other bushes and small trees dominated parts of the pastures. The sheep always go to feed of those leaves first, then they continue on to the grass. Leaves have traditionally always been part of winter feed around here but it became unpopular because it didn’t fit the growing farm sizes. Newer research shows though that leaves do contain quite a lot of energy and minerals but also the fiber has its worth. Anyone who tasted some leaves knows the strong, bitter taste they have, these seem to be the healthy things in life (birch leaves are supposedly very good if you are plagued by kidney stones).

• ash (Fraxnus)
• chestnut (Castanea)
• alder (Alnus) – they even increase lactation
• willow (Salix) – aspirin 😉
• oak (Quercus) – they usually only eat it in early spring
• elm (Ulmus)
• birch (Betula)
• lime tree (Tilia)
• walnut (Juglans major)
• hazel (Corylus avellana)
• blackberry (Rubus)
• mulberry (Morus) – these are supposed to create high energy yields of up to 15t/ha
• …

As pollard trees (is that the right term?) planted directly on the permanent pastures they don’t even take up extra space and grass will still grow under them. They can be cut down every third year, cutting them earlier might not give a lot of yield and be a challenge for the trees to survive). Other factors like shadow and wind breaks might be worth considering. There were even som that made silage of one year old trees…

Supplements

My mother experimented with teas in the sheep’s water in the early days, but she didn’t follow it up with excrement testing. She used pretty much all the classic teas, like blackberries, walnut, tilia, thyme, rosemary, salvia and so on. Probably because she herself starts drinking excessive amounts of tea as soon as she feels sick.

My sister feeds several different dry ground up herb mixtures ad libitum sometimes combined with salt. What she observes is that the sheep start eating a specific mixture and two to three weeks later they release a lot of parasites and parasite eggs. It seems they know in advance what they need. She also observed that they eat excessive amounts of a certain mixture on certain pastures. It turned out that the particular pasture was infested with ticks and the mixture they chose was the one helping against sucking insects… What do WE actually know?

Unfortunately she couldn’t tell me the whole secret of those mixtures, she buys them herself from a farmer that has a lot of knowledge and sells the mixtures. But basically it’s all the plants and herbs that we named before and some stronger ones like Artemisia absinthium for example. Legal issues also only allow him to sell it as supplements and not as treatment/medicines although the farmers use it like that as well. I will press her more about the contents but here is also his website: https://www.symbiopole.com/ Since he translated his website partially to English there might be a chance he could be a guest on John’s podcast?

Treatment

Regular treatment consists of 0,4ml garlic oil (essential oil) and filling up to 4ml with pumpkin seed oil for lambs. Unfortunately this has to be repeated 3-5 times following days. This is actually valid for all the herbal/natural remedies, a one time treatment will not work. So you need to plan your chicory pasture or pollard trees accordingly. She also experimented with whole garlic soaked in vinegar for two weeks, this didn’t kill the sheep and seemed to work as well. So it may be possible to use what is available on farm as long as we get some better understanding what works and how the mechanisms are. Would be interesting to observe what a free roaming flock on a native prairie would do to get rid of parasites.

One of the issues they face here is that official rules require a maximum (in her case 50 day) waiting time after this treatment. It’s probably because there is no datasheet that specifies waiting time…

For emergency treatment she uses Levamisol since this seems the least persistent poison. She avoids the broadband long term chemicals like ivermectin (thanks to covid its not even available at the moment) since they not only poison the sheep but everything else around them as well. Those emergency treatments are only for sheep really infested that wouldn’t survive otherwise. Zou have to be aware though that those sheep have a bad immune system that just got weakened more by chemicals and they are usually the first ones that attract new parasites again. So either you need to develop a special program for those or put an X next to their name…

I hope this helps and is a starting point for more conversation here.