Sheep
A Source of High-Quality Natural Products
Sheep play a major role in Australia’s agricultural industry. Australian sheep provide the world with some of the highest quality meats and finest wools.
Just 29 Sheep came to Australia with the first fleet over 200 years ago and today their numbers exceed 70 million. The sheepmeat market is a lucrative domestic and export industry to Australia. On top of that, Australia is still one of the world’s largest suppliers of wool, producing a substantial amount of the world’s high quality unprocessed wool.
Sheep farmers face many challenges to produce quality meat and wool. The old saying, “A sheep is another sheep’s worst enemy,” is still valid today as sheep are exposed to many parasites and infectious diseases, which, due to the herding nature of the species, can spread quickly between each other.
Blowflies and intestinal worms are two of the biggest health problems faced by the sheep producers today. They seriously affect productivity and are a major animal welfare problem within the sheep industry.
In recent years, some parasites have developed resistance to existing parasiticides and sheep farmers are in a race to treat their sheep with products that are effective, easy to administer and affordable.
Taking Protection to a New Level
Novartis Animal Health is dedicated to producing products to prevent and treat blowfly infestations and internal worms – both of which can result in death if not treated. Globally, our R&D efforts continually look to these areas of disease to develop new products and solutions to improve the livelihoods of Australian farmers.