But this year Mr Mayled, who manages the mixed superfine Merino property, Balnagown, at Guyra, NSW, says he is better prepared than ever thanks to the new Barbers Pole (Haemonchosis) Dipstick Test kit.

“We would drench five to six times a year and still have terrible problems with Barbers Pole,” he recalls.

“This year with the kit I could test the sheep without having to wait for the visual signs that the sheep were suffering.”

Today, despite heavy rain, his sheep are healthy and free from the blood sucking internal parasite.

According to Sheep CRC figures, the price of battling internal parasites has soared to be the most costly disease confronting Australian sheep producers.

Last year, the sheep industry spent a collective $369 million attempting to combat the predator.

But even though the cost and loss of productivity continues to spiral upwards each year, until the commercial release of the Haemonchosis Dipstick Test kit last December, producer’s weapons were best-guess, or for a small proportion, costly lab-based worm egg counts.

Professor James Rowe, Chief executive of the Sheep CRC, has been at the forefront of getting a worm detection kit commercially available.

“With the Haemonchus Dipstick Test kit now on the market, livestock producers can simply, quickly and cheaply monitor their mobs,” he said.

Gerard Stephen, of the 25,000 head Merino property Warrane in the New England region, used the test this year, and said the new kit was a “ground-breaking invention.”

“I like to say that the worms have got smarter over the years, but the Dipstick puts us farmers back in front,” he said.

“The test strip is scaled from 1 to 5; I record each reading on the calendar to track infection levels and if I get a reading of 3, that’s my action trigger to use an effective drench and move the mob to a clean paddock.”

Barbers Pole worms are found in high-rainfall regions of northern NSW and Queensland, southern Victoria and south-west Western Australia.

The dipstick test works by identifying the amount of blood in faecal samples and detects worm burdens up to one week before faecal worm egg counts.

“The testing tool is chemically sensitive to hemoglobin (a product of blood breakdown) and changes colour according to the amount of blood in the sample,” Sheep CRC’s project manager and principal veterinary parasitologist with the WA Department of Agriculture and Food WA, Dr Brown Besier, said.

The kit is available off-the shelf and retails at $180 for 50 tests.