Body Strike

Research over many years has shown that the most important factor affecting the risk of body strike is the presence of fleece rot.

Fleece rot is caused by moisture and bacterial growth at skin level. Fleece rot refers to the degree of wool discolouration and/or crusted banding across wool fibres and parallel to the skin. Discoloured bands can be yellow, green, red-orange, pink-violet, blue, brown or grey in colour.

Fleece rot should not be confused with dermatophilosis (also known as dermatitis or ‘lumpy wool’), which tends to form columns of hard lumps along the staple – download information below.

The Visual Sheep Scores Guide, Version 2 – 2013 provides a common industry language for describing and assessing fleece rot in sheep. The higher the score, the more severe the fleece rot and hence the risk of body strike in the sheep. The risk of body strike can be reduced by reducing the incidence of fleece rot in the flock.

Dermatitis (lumpy wool) (53 KB)

Download the information sheet below.

Fleece rot information (16 KB)