In The Know: Innovations in Lice Treatment with Dr Jane Morrison

Oli Le Lievre 0:04 Good day and welcome to the in the know on the go podcast produced by humans of agriculture. Our podcast is designed to get you across the things that matter in Ozzie agribusiness in a way that's just well, bloody easy to understand. Think of me as a friend I that is learning with you as we discover and chat about the topics from farm to fork, and even beyond. Welcome back to another Friday. It's the first Friday in August this year is honestly flying. And I just want to say Happy Friday until my business studies teacher used to say to me, a huge smile on her face and happy Friday guys hope you're having an absolute cracker. Now today's episode has been sponsored by MST animal health, and I'm sitting down with their technical lead and veterinarian. Dr. Jay Morrison who comes to us from yes, no, yes has a little bit of a soft spot in my heart. When I first went Jack ruing and left school, I was working in the southwest slopes, and it's a pretty remarkable part of New South Wales. Today's episode and I'd love to say our backline millions of sheep, I probably definitely haven't, I'll pretend like I have. I've done probably a few 1000. For those of you who don't know, when it comes to treating animals off shears, for things like lice, you put a back line on them traditionally, anyway, Cooper's have released a new product, which is an oral treatment, similar to how you drench animals, just to manage disease. And so today, I thought, what we do, we've teamed up with these guys to find out a little bit more about their product. One, I thought I could ask you a few questions which might be beneficial to you to find out more about it, how it works, what are some of the risks, what are some of the processes? And how long does it actually take to get new products to market? Because I thought they're all things which I was pretty curious to find out myself, and I thought you'd be interested in listening to so I'm not going to take any more of your time. Jumping to this episode. Enjoy Friday. Have a great weekend. Let's go. Jane, a big question. First start my love asking everyone. How are you going today? Speaker 2 1:56 I'm going really well thankfully, a very sunny day and yesterday, which is nice. Oli Le Lievre 2:00 How are things looking for you guys? I've got a little soft spot for that Southwest slopes area. Speaker 2 2:04 I think it's gonna be a pretty good season. Actually, we've had some rain throughout the winter. So we don't have a lot of growth now. But once we get a bit warmer weather, I think yeah, well, we'll have plenty of grass around here for a while, which is really nice. Oli Le Lievre 2:17 I've got another question. And I asked it last week at a conference. And it was really cool kind of how people brought it to life in their own kind of speeches and presentations afterwards. But when I was asked on the humans of agriculture podcast is asking people about their earliest happiest memories in agriculture. And for you, I think we'll flesh out a little bit about you being a vet and the various pathways. But if you throw it back a few years, what are some of those early memories of ag for you? Speaker 2 2:43 I think my earliest memories are, you know, before school, when I just used to hang out on the farm with my dad. And whether we were, you know, doing Lucerne or cash crops, I'd hang out with the pickers and the tomatoes or the zucchinis. And then spend time in the cattle yards with dad. So basically, it was not being at school and just spending all day being random on the farm with your mom and dad. So yeah, it was awesome. Oli Le Lievre 3:06 The old fake Siki until like 10 o'clock, and then you knew it was too late to actually go to school for the day. Speaker 2 3:12 They're a bit strict on that when school was on school had to be attended. But no, I just loved it. As a child, I think it's a fantastic childhood. And I've tried to replicate that with my kids and give them that same freedom and enjoyment of the outdoors and the agricultural world. And so Oli Le Lievre 3:27 have you always had that love of life. So it was a really obvious pathway for you that you'd go down the vet science path. Um, Speaker 2 3:33 it was. So in the 70s, when we're doing the bovine TB eradication, we had vets come out obviously, often. And it was, you know, Mom and Dad and I said I was only four or five. And I just declared that I was going to be an animal doctor, because I just loved being in the yard and working with them. And you know, helping them with the tubes and doing all that sort of stuff. And I just yeah, that dream stayed with me all the way through school. And I was lucky enough to be able to study at Sydney Uni in the 90s. And I've had a great career since being a veterinarian in practice and networking with MSD animal health. It's been fantastic. Was it a Oli Le Lievre 4:06 difficult decision to leave the practice citing come in and join the msdt? Speaker 2 4:12 Absolutely, I, I really love to practice that was really everything I wanted it to be. And I really enjoyed every day. And it was always different. A lot of that decision came down to my personal life at the time I had young children, and I wanted to be able to raise them myself. And that can be difficult in practice. So I made the decision to give it a go. And to be perfectly honest, I actually did that with the thought in my mind that I would hate it. So probably didn't go in with the most positive mindset. But it wasn't exactly what I thought it was much better. And here I am 18 years later. So kind of in that band. It's actually a great job and it really gives you that opportunity to be involved in preventative health and production as opposed to sort of fire engine stuff. I still there's bits of practice that I missed but I'm now I'm really, really happy and very much enjoyed. And it was a fantastic change for me to get more into prevention. And I've got my own cattle, I can still pull the odd calf or do what I need out there. So I haven't lost it totally Oli Le Lievre 5:13 get the fix as and when you need it, or I'm sure you're still the go to with friends. I just said, I'm seeing this with my dog or cat or whatever. Speaker 2 5:20 Yeah, you can never go to a party without some question coming up about someone's pet or livestock. So it's a really good career path. I'm very happy. Oli Le Lievre 5:29 One thing I did 18 years is a heck of a long time, I'm sure you've been involved with bringing plenty of different products to market along that time, has there been any career highlights along that journey? Speaker 2 5:39 Look, it's been most of my career highlights, I guess here at the company, they're there about the people. It's a really incredible team. And that's what keeps people here. And there's a lot of us that have been here for extended periods. And it is always bringing new things to market and looking at new ways that you can use different products and different programs. Really, it's more for me about the animal health programs and how we can make changes to that to improve their production to improve welfare to improve outcomes on farms. So it's really, since a bit cliche, but it's the whole big picture. It's it's the people and it's the achievements that you can make and the difference you can make on phone. Oli Le Lievre 6:18 And so I guess the way that we've been introduced is through a bit of a ribbon of a few different people. And they said James, a very interesting person, you got to chat to her about her background and what she's done, but also to a new product, which is coming to market, which you've been really a key part of bringing to life over quite a considerable amount of time. So it is the new flagship product, which is a Cooper's last treatment, but it's treated orally as opposed to backline animals at sharing. So what is different about the product that you guys have brought to market this time? Yeah, Speaker 2 6:48 I will just make clear, I mean, I suppose I've had a bit to do in the background with the product as it's come to market. But the reality is, in my role of I've had very little to do, we've got an amazing r&d team. So reach the research and development team. And they really the core group that has spent, you know, 10 to 15 years developing the product, looking at formulations, looking at dose rates, they're doing all the trials and getting everything together. So that team, and I guess that's what makes the difference between, you know, various companies, if you've got a really good internal r&d department, you can really bring innovations like this to the market, and MSDN is going to continue to do that. And so I think I just have to put the credit back to the research and development team, not me, I get the fun part. So once we start to, you know, really achieving great things, and we've got great efficacy and safety, that's when it starts coming to technical and about how are we going to position it in the market? And, you know, what do we need? And how are we going to do that. So I get the fun end of it, they get all the heartache for 10 to 15 years working out the the nuts and bolts, but they've done a fantastic job. And you know, they've brought this product to market, which really will change the way that farmers could treat their sheep lice, it's oral, which is a big change that shaped lice, you've usually always actually always got to use a topical treatment. So that was back liners or dips is the first time that we've been able to use an oral product to treat cheat ly. So that'll make a huge difference. And there's a couple of reasons for that. But one of the biggest reasons it'll make such a difference is it doesn't matter what length of wall, the shape have anymore. So lost control was always tied to sharing, you had to do it either off shares, or in less than six weeks wall if you were dipping. And now you can do it in any length of wall and get highly effective control. So that's what's going to make a big difference for people, I think. Oli Le Lievre 8:37 And so what are the key benefits for this, I guess, for the farmers out there. Speaker 2 8:41 Yeah, so being able to do it orally, a lot of people prefer to treat early one of the big issues that you know, I've come across over the years with backline products is people will think that they're easy, and they're really not that easy to get right with loss control, you have to treat 100% of the shape 100%. Well, with a baseline product, it's easy to miss a shape or any half treat or any put it on one side of the sheet. So you do get a lot of issues with that with an oral treatment as long as you mark the shape. So you know which ones you've treated, it's much easier to make sure they get their full dose. If they cough a bit up, you can always re dose them because it's very safe. So it really is going to help give that dose. It's also you know, a much lower volume. So there's much less chemical to handle. You don't need power doses and a lot of housing. It's literally just a backpack and a drench gun. So it's much easier to do that way. But the biggest thing will be that any length of haul so because it's are all linkable doesn't matter. And that means that if they've got split sharing on farm or they've got onshore lands at foot or they're bringing in sheep and wanting to quarantine them, it doesn't matter what they will link this they will get really effective loss control using flip so Oli Le Lievre 9:49 and so. Is the product any different I know traditionally off the back of She's everything was backlogged for loss. But do you still have to do all animals across the farm? Speaker 2 9:58 Oh yeah, absolutely. So sheep loss only live on sheep. So you'd need to treat every single sheep if you want to get rid of sheep loss. So yeah, it's my little mantra has always been 100% of the sheep on farm 100%. Well, and that's the only way you're going to eradicate your loss. Oli Le Lievre 10:14 Is there a, like, how long is it? What's the word I'm trying to think of here? But like, I guess, lifespan of the product? How long? Does it last all Speaker 2 10:23 about the protective period? How long does it continue to kill lice, like pretty much all the products on the market, it's a it's a knockdown. So it'll only kill the lasts for a short period of time, probably something out, you know, to around three weeks. So it's in the bloodstream for a while, and it secretes into the Swint on their skin. And so that then coats the dead skin cells at the lysate. And it also coats the lice. And so it will definitely excrete out there, you know, for a couple of weeks, but it's a short term. It's a knockdown. And then it like any last product becomes about management to make sure that you don't reintroduce loss. And that's why it's so important to treat all shape at once. Oli Le Lievre 10:58 Yeah, gotcha. And so, two very key things when it comes to any sort of treatment with animals with holding periods for sharing and mate, what did they look like? Speaker 2 11:07 And they're really good and completely, you know, within the realms of what producers are used to so the meat withholds any 14 days, most people look more at the ESI. So the export slaughter interval, and that's only 54 days. So you know, it's under two months. So if you're if you're trading, you know that that's perfectly fine timeframe to be able to keep them and then and sell them after that. Oli Le Lievre 11:28 And because I'm just got a million questions for you, John, another one, can you do like another oral drench at the same time that you're doing this oral Lice Treatment as well? Well, back Speaker 2 11:37 to our research and development team on that one. So we we've currently actually got some studies underway looking at various stretches and using them at the same time, the answer is at the moment, we don't know. So we're recommending that you don't use them together, they'll be safe to use, but what we don't know is whether or not one will affect the efficacy or how well one or the other works. And that's what this study is designed to do. All loss control studies have to go for five months. So it does take a while to get those results, but they're underway at the moment. So, you know, early next year, we'll have some better advice on that. But at the moment, it's an unknown, and we don't want people doing it unless we're sure that it's not going to have any impact. So at the moment, we're saying, you know, leave them a day apart. And, and we'll update that once the research and development team comes back with those results. Oli Le Lievre 12:22 So can I just clarify, so 10 or 15 odd years for the research and development team to bring it to life? So once it comes to Mark, is that when you guys are doing further testing around, as you said in the trenches, everything else? Speaker 2 12:35 Yeah. So that's when you know, we look at what's missing, or what people are going to ask. And that's feedback from, you know, farmers, and we knew that that was going to be a question. So we had that already in the background. But as we you know, launch a new product to market, farmers give feedback and all those sorts of things, you know, we take seriously, we act on it. And we say, well, actually, that's a really good point, we could look at doing that. So that's when we can do that. We call it post market research and development. So once it's out there and registered, we can look at all those sorts of things. Oli Le Lievre 13:03 And in terms of where people can get it from, is it available now? Or is it when's it hitting the shelves? Speaker 2 13:07 Yeah, it hit the shelves. Two or three weeks ago, actually. So most rural retailers have got some in already. And if they don't, they can certainly order something Oli Le Lievre 13:16 perfect. Well, John, is there anything else that you want to add on that? I'll also do have a couple other questions. But we'll then on animal health related. Speaker 2 13:23 That pretty much covers it. I think, from what I've seen in the last few weeks being out and about on farm and in various stores, doing trainings and things there's a lot of excitement about it, that flexibility that it brings the ability to treat shape and different wall lengths so that if they've got split sharings they can do is really got everyone excited. So it's it's great to be able to see that innovation come out into the the industry. It's fantastic. Oli Le Lievre 13:49 Yeah, it's definitely going to make a bit of a difference for me, I could have done with it a few years ago, I would have saved a few pairs of January, thinking about last treatment. One final question for you. And I do ask everyone and it comes back to your vet days. But if you had the chance, Jane to go and chat to your 10 students and a Sydney High School. Why would you say to them that they should consider a career in agriculture? Speaker 2 14:13 And sometimes I think that's really hard to answer just because for me, that's it. That's all I've ever wanted to do. And it was I guess all I've ever known, but I want to I love about it. I mean I love the outdoors. I love the community spirit. Only yesterday I was down in Wagga at a community event and with a lot of uni students actually and in the spirit of people in the country and I think you know I've been at this company for 18 years I said that's about the people I think life is about the people and working in agriculture the the people are incredible and the experiences you can have and so that's incredible and also more for me it's a lot about making a difference in welfare and production and working with livestock. It's it's always rewarding. It's always different. And I think that's something else that keeps people engaged. No two days are ever the same whether it's the weather or the livestock or something else, you never know what you'll get. So that makes it exciting as well. Oli Le Lievre 15:10 Couldn't be truer. Well, John, thank you so much for taking a little bit of time to have a chat to us about that. And if people want to know more, I can head to Cooper's or do you have other ways of you pushing them or just had to strike the Cooper's and also flex out and come across cases. Speaker 2 15:24 We'll get there or flex out. I think if you search any of them these days, you'll get where you need to go. Oli Le Lievre 15:30 Perfect. Thanks, John. Unknown Speaker 15:31 All right. Thanks, Oli. That was great. Oli Le Lievre 15:34 Well, that's it for another episode from us here at humans of agriculture. We hope you're enjoying these podcasts. And well, if you're not, let us know. Hit us up at Hello at humans of agriculture.com. Get in touch with any guests recommendations topics, or things you'd like us to talk and get curious about. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Right subscribe, review it, any feedback is absolutely awesome. And we really do welcome it. So look after yourselves. Stay safe. stay sane. We'll see you next time. See ya. Transcribed by https://otter.ai