Livamol® with BioWorma®

Michael R from Georgia

The price is really my only issue...it is REALLY expensive to administer. That said, we had struggled with barber pole worm in our modest sized herd of Spanish Goats. Our FAMACHA scores were dangerously low, even using combinations of Prohibit, Safeguard and Cydectin to worm. They were constantly getting reinfected. We decided to give this product a try (in spite of the cost), and could not be more happy with the results. Within a month, every single animal was a 1 or 2 on the FAMACHA scale. Like others have said, they won't like it on day one...but just keep scattering it over their grain and within two days, they'll start lapping it up. They literally lick their feeders clean to get up every last bit. So 5 stars for the quality of the product...and 2 stars for the price. I hope that either competition or economies of scale bring the cost down because a $150 bucket lasts only 4 weeks with our herd of 29 goats...12 of whom are only 9 months old.

Lisa K from Florida

I'm starting with 3 stars and hoping to edit and improve my rating. I just started giving small amounts to my cattle, mixed in feed, since other reviewers said their animals found it unpalatable (and so far so good, I don't think that will be a problem for me). My cattle are grass-fed and -finished, and I only use range cubes as a training aid to help move them around easily; otherwise I don't feed them. I've been pondering how to give them such a large amount of BioWorma without having to put it in huge amounts of feed, for which I do not have adequate feeders, so I'd either have to spend a lot of money on feeders or lose the powdered BioWorma on the ground. I was also perplexed that the instructions say to mix it in feed, but only on a 'per hundredweight' scale, not in a ratio of BioWorma to feed. If it's important to mix with feed, aren't the proportions also important? I looked again at the information on this site for clues and found something important:

Click on the Data Sheet tab.

Scroll down to the chart called Daily Feeding Rates. It says:

"LIVAMOL® with BioWorma® may be mixed with feed, offered by free access alongside other feed,..." So it doesn't really have to be mixed in feed, apparently, but just offered with other feed available. Is hay considered 'feed?'

But! While the note on the chart says that, the product label says this:

"Not for use in free-choice feed. Do not feed undiluted. Not for direct consumption. Intended for further mixing into feed."

So which is it? And why? Will it hurt my animals if I follow the directions on the chart? If it's important to mix it in feed, it should be important to specify a mixing rate, but there is none. If it can't be fed free-choice, then I'm supposed to somehow monitor and control how much each one eats? Yet dosing is based on "the heaviest animal in the group to determine the appropriate amount of Livamol® with BioWorma® to use." I take that to mean that I should dose as if every animal weighed as much as the heaviest animal, which makes it sound relatively harmless and so probably safe to feed free-choice.

I love the concept, I'm so grateful to the company for something that's not an antibiotic, and I want to use the product, but did it ever go through beta-testing to work out these sorts of contradictions in labeling?

And my other puzzle with the product is that, when fed to a herd, and they are competing for the feed (mine do, it's a rare treat for my herd), who gets the most? The ones who always eat the most of anything, including the hay, because they're at the top of the pecking order. Who is most likely to need it the most? Those at the bottom of the pecking order, who can't compete.

April H from TN/USA

Love this product. Made a HUGE difference in parasite loads this summer! Coats looked and felt much better. We did not have issues with palatability. Only day 1, but after that they LOVE it!!!

Robin K from Texas

I raise dairy goats and do feed grain once daily to all animals. I do not have enough land for proper pasture rotation. On year 10 here, with large pasture parasite loads. The last three years, I just assume when I check eyelids that they will be pale. A rigorous deworming routine has kept every animal alive, but increased wormer resistance until only Prohibit would work. I was getting desperate.

This product was a miracle on MY property. I started feeding it this spring, right before the hot/wet weather hit. I have seen consistently pink eyelids, and I have only wormed TWICE. Once after kidding and once at the end of the summer.

I quit using it in the summer during the extreme dry heat, and am now ordering again in preparation for fall.

It is true that this is not palatable. Introduce it slowly on some sort of sweet feed that it will stick to. Mine got used to it. Even does on the milk stand that didn’t have to fight for feed.

So thankful to have this option!!

With 20 does and 5 bucks, I order one 30 lb pail per month and get the free shipping. Saved me money in the long run.

Kerri J from New York

Well it’s a bit early to really tell if this product will work. I will say that only one goat would eat it the first day I did add molasses and got my three kids and one buck to eat it. My old buck still has refused and because its so expensive he’s not getting it. I have a small 1 acre farm with a small herd of goats. It’s been really wet here this year and since I can’t rotate grazing and had a bad worm issue, I’m trying this product.