Lice?

I think a couple of my calves have lice or mites. Put cydectin on them, sprayed them with 2 different kinds of permethrin several times, sprayed their entire pen with permethrin, and I always wash with anti-fungal soap. Still got it! Any ideas?

step up your game and break out the Ivomec/ Ivermectin. thats good stuff

Lice are parasitic not a fungus, so the anti fungal soap is just giving em a bath. If you are going to kill them with a insecticide spray, needs to be done at least 2 times 14 days apart to kill the kits. I would be inclined to call the Cydectin rep, IMO it should have worked. It is a good product as far as what I have always heard. Remember there are generic products out now that you can pour your cattle 5 times for the same price as Ivermectin. Doesn't mean it's better, but it sure is cheaper.

We use Cydectin exclusively.  It always takes care of it for us.

Lice will rehatch.  Pour again about 3 weeks after first use.

How soon after treatment are you washing?

Elector is a very good lice product

Cylence is the only thing that we've found to work well the first time.

We had a goat that had lice and the vet recommended the Frontline Flea and Tick Spray for dogs and cats. We used it on the goat, a calf, and now another goat. It works great! Gets rid of them fast.

I know lice isnt a fungus, just wanted to put that out there so no one would would ask if its a fungus. We wash and blow before we spray the permethrin and before we pour on cydectin, so we're not washing it off after we spray. And as for spraying twice within 3 weeks, I have sprayed 3 times this week. I will give them another round of cydectin, and will try the cylence. Thanks for everyones help.

If you're washing (maybe even just rinsing and blowing) the next day, you may not be giving the products (especially the pour ons) enough time to get soaked into the skin and do their thing.  We like to pour them at the beginning of one of those cold snaps when we know we won't be messing with them for a couple of days.  If you can't stand that, try just blowing them out good for two or three days.  I really prefer to wait 3 days after they've been poured to wash.

I think sometimes this time of year they just want to scratch - dry skin, too much hair, boredom, who knows why.  The only thing that'll completely stop it is keeping them inside a hot wire, and eliminating everything inside their pen they can scratch on (feeders, etc...).

Steer4Caddy said:

Cylence is the only thing that we've found to work well the first time.

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We like Cylence also.  Haven't had to use it in a couple of years, but we had a real bad case of lice a few years ago and we poured them with Cydectin once and then used Cylence a couple of weeks later.

Ingeneral the evidence of lice is way more prevalent during the winter months & the harder the winter, the worse lice seem to be.

Personally I would not be washing the cattle before you treat for lice as you want the the hair and hide to be as dry as possible when you treat.  In my experience the cattle will probably continue to scratch for at least a short time after as it seem to become a habit.  Treating multiple times in a short time span does not take the place of a second treatment three weeks later. Treating after three weeks is to kill the eggs that have hatched since the first treatment and by treating multiple times in a week you are not giving time for this to occur.

Anybody had any experience with DE (diatomacious earth)? Here the internal parasites are resistant to ivomec, so no point using it just for lice. Lice are horrible this year.

This might be going to far, but our one instance of having it we even soaked the bushes, combs, halters, etc. to kill it all really good. Treat every animal that comes in contact with the infested one, too. They can just toss it back and forth. We used an insecticide on the WHOLE barn, top to bottom- one of those mixes that will come out of a detachable spray bottle. Good luck 

k so i need help. the past 2 years we have poured with ivomec, and done it again in 10 days since the life cycle of lice is that long.  We also powdered with lice powder after that and still had problems. any suggestions?

Are you sure it was lice? That sounds awfully odd. Are you talking on show cattle? Sometimes, as a post stated before, people mistake lice for dry skin. It was easy for us to figure out b/c of the black tint to the white head of a Hereford, otherwise I would have thought the rubbing and scratching was simply dry skin. We always used a cheapo conditioner from Dollar General or some shop like that. That seemed to help their skin stay moisturized and helped them heal faster in our one lice case.

Another random question- are there vermin around your cattle? We traced our problem to an old barn by our new barn that housed many, many pests. We got rid of it and the lice in the same summer. The vermin would mingle with the same equipment, feeders and waterers as the cattle. It was stupid how many places you would see a raccoon or something!!! Wore me out.

For your sake, I hope it is dry skin!!

ya we have old barns with coon problems in the mows. these arent on the show cattle this is usually our cow herd.  they are on stalks all winter then are brought to the barn for calving and breeding season.  maybe i should look into something more than lice?