Ticks and weight gain

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librarian

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Jul 26, 2013
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Knox County Nebraska
I am in Knox Co. Nebraska checking fence around the land I plan to put some cows on. There are a lot of oak trees, the grass is knee high and there are some wet areas at the bottom of a drainage. There is high ground also and ridges. It's sandy.

I came out crawling with ticks...about 20.
Is this usual on "hunting land" or because of the wet year and high grass?

How do all the ticks affect growth with calves?
I just caught a tick on me as I am writing this...#21.
 

Cabanha Santa Isabel - BR

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Aug 15, 2012
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Rio Grande - RS - Brazil
Ticks are evil creatures!  :'(
We have it almost around year and they really affect seriosly calves growth, also take off lots of weight from adult cattle. A high ticks infestation will take off 50 kg or more from an animal on 10 days. Cattle loose blood, starve.
Not good creatures. We need to work with it as none other way to raise cattle here.
 

librarian

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Knox County Nebraska
Well, it looks like ticks are worse when there is a wet spring.
Here is a recipe for home made tick repellant from outdoornebraska.gov, so I guess these ticks are something you just live with.
http://neblandvm.outdoornebraska.gov/2014/05/make-tick-repellent/
I sure don't see any skinny sick looking calves or cows around here, so I guess they just live with it too.
Santa: do the native cattle seem more tolerant? native crosses? Or do heavier animals do better with the ticks?
 

cowboy_nyk

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Aug 28, 2013
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Manitoba, Canada
Ticks definitely affect weight gain.  We get them pretty bad here may-june and they trail off in July.  I treat with Cylence at the full dose for killing biting lice and it seems to keep them under control.  I literally pulled a couple hundred off of the bull before treating him.  Checked yesterday and found 0 ticks.
 

Cabanha Santa Isabel - BR

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Joined
Aug 15, 2012
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Location
Rio Grande - RS - Brazil
librarian said:
Well, it looks like ticks are worse when there is a wet spring.
Here is a recipe for home made tick repellant from outdoornebraska.gov, so I guess these ticks are something you just live with.
http://neblandvm.outdoornebraska.gov/2014/05/make-tick-repellent/
I sure don't see any skinny sick looking calves or cows around here, so I guess they just live with it too.
Santa: do the native cattle seem more tolerant? native crosses? Or do heavier animals do better with the ticks?

All are affected, native, no native, heavier, lighter, males, females....all are affected equally.
Differences are saw animal by animal, interest as some ones are more affected than another ones, animals of same breed. Some difference is saw on zebu blood (Santa Gertudis/ Braford) or adapted breeds blood like Bonsmaras or Senepol, they show some times a little less ticks than european....but as told, I saw some Braford with more tick than Shorthorns....animal by animal differences.

Now we are with 4°C and after tomorrow will make a tick control!

We are seeing here in my state some kind of overall tick resistance, almost all breeders in all counties here are showing and having tick resistance to poison. I have some theories for this. But only theories!
 

Duncraggan

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Jun 2, 2012
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821
This is a subject close to my heart and to my wallet!

Ticks are the biggest cause of mortality and morbidity amongst my cattle.  I lose at least 4% per annum to tickborne diseases, even though I immunize against the worst disease, heartwater. Cattle can lose a whole condition score unit in a week with an infestation of ticks, in my experience, even without the risk of death due to a tickborne disease.

When I moved to my new farm, six years ago, the dipping regimen from my previous property seemed to have no effect on the ticks. I had a test done by Bayer Animal Health and they determined that 100% of the ticks were resistant to Flumethrin, 67% resistant to Amitraz and a small percentage, I can't remember the exact number, to organo-phosphates.

As noted by CSI, some cattle seem to be the 'yardstick' by which you measure whether you need to dip the herd or not and I think the next thing I will be observing is if it is genetic, that is, if their progeny exhibit the same trait, or not.

I imagine that Pharo Cattle Company's fly resistance score could be used, but with ticks, here in South Africa! It certainly gave me food for thought.
 
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