Palamountains finds potential cure after chemical drench issues

John Palamountain may have the key to increase productivity and address chemical issues with his Revive product.

Worldwide concern over animal drenches and resistance to them is being addressed by a Whanganui-based and owned company.

Scientific animal nutrition manufacturer Palamountains is backing its product Revive as a potential panacea to reduce chemical drenches and field trial results have been more than just encouraging.

Like the other Palamountain products, the palaMOUNTAINS-Revive technology is a mixture of water and fat soluble vitamins and minerals in a patented water and oil emulsion. The beauty of the solution is that it has a 99 per cent absorption rate when consumed by stock.

Parent company Vitapower's managing director, John Palamountain said data from independent research company UMR reveals farmers now widely consider animal health within the top three practises for improving productivity.

Farmers and marketers are also acutely aware of consumers' distaste of chemicals in food worldwide.

On-farm field trials at Ed Morrow's Central Plateau sheep and beef farm last year revealed a substantial reduction in dags and worm burden at ovine faecal egg count time after using Revive.

"After the January 4 drench of Revive I was so impressed with the recovery of the lighter stud ewes I decided to drench the rest of my stud ewes six days later," Mr Morrow said.

"Since doing this they have all put on great condition and are totally clean of dags."
Eleven days after administering 30ml of Revive to the rest of his stud ewes the faecal egg count was zero. Subsequent use of Revive also showed substantial reductions at egg count time.

Meanwhile, field trials on a Marton lamb fattening farm revealed substantial increases in productivity.

This trial was designed to establish the benefits of increasing vitamins A, D, and E and also B12.

A mob of 188 weaned lambs were selected and split into two groups - control and treatment groups. The two groups were then grazed on grass paddocks only for 42 days.

The control group averaged 27.5kg at the outset on May 11, increasing to 32.02kg on June 21.

The treatment group began the trial averaging 27kg, increasing to 32.62kg by June 21.
In the trial summary the average weight increase of the control group was recorded at 4.52kg, while the treatment group was 5.26kg, a 24.33% weight increase.

This equated to a 5236% return on investment and the treatment group were all 100% clean of any scouring, while 10% of the control mob displayed signs of scouring which contributed to that mob's reduced weight performance. The average improvement over the control group was 26 grams a day.

One of the other main attractions of Revive is its versatility.
Nutrients and trace elements deficient in stock can easily be added to the solution before administration.

"Palamountains agri products are the only applications within the New Zealand market that are individually customised at no extra cost to meet the nutritional needs of stock.

This is a revolutionary step forward in addressing New Zealand's chemical residue issues and at the same time improving productivity," Mr Palamountain said.