How to completely eliminate cattle ticks? A detailed guide to prevention and control methods

Cattle ticks, commonly known as cattle lice, are arthropods of the tick superfamily in the order Ixodida (mites and ticks). They feed by attaching to warm-blooded vertebrates and sucking blood, and are important vectors of many infectious diseases for humans and lower animals. They secrete neurotoxins and transmit diseases such as Texas cattle fever, anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, hemorrhagic fever and encephalitis. Let's take a look below at how to completely eliminate cattle ticks!

What harm do cattle ticks cause?

When cattle ticks bite and suck blood, they are mostly painless. The bite site can cause local congestion and edema, and can also lead to secondary infection. The neurotoxins secreted in the saliva of certain hard ticks and soft ticks during blood feeding can block the conduction of motor fibers in the host, causing ascending muscle paralysis, which can lead to death from respiratory failure. This is called tick paralysis, and human cases have been reported in Shandong and other places in China.

How to completely eliminate cattle ticks?

1. Environmental control: In grassland areas, adopt pasture rotation and pasture isolation, clean poultry and livestock sheds, plug holes and seal cracks to prevent tick breeding, and capture and kill rodents.

2. Chemical control: Spray fenthion, chlorpyrifos, alphacypermethrin, etc. in tick habitats and overwintering sites, and carry out regular medicinal baths for livestock to kill ticks.

3. Biological control: Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae and Aspergillus fumigatus, etc. have lethal effects on ticks. Encyrtid wasps lay eggs inside ticks, and when they develop into adults, they cause the ticks to die.

4. Personal protection: When entering tick-infested areas, wear protective clothing, tightly fasten trouser cuffs, sleeve cuffs and collars, apply repellent to exposed parts, or soak clothing in repellent.

What species of cattle ticks are there?

1. Ixodes persulcatus: The scutum is brown, the dorsal surface of the body has marginal folds, the palps are slender and cylindrical, the auricular processes on the ventral surface of the basis capituli are bluntly toothed, and the anal groove is inverted U-shaped in front of the anus. It is distributed in Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, ** and other places.

2. Dermacentor nuttalli: The scutum has enamel-like spots, eyes and marginal festoons, the palps are broad and short, the basis capituli is rectangular, the dorsal spur of trochanter I is short and blunt, and the outer spur of coxa IV does not extend beyond the posterior margin of that segment. It is distributed in Northeast China, North China and Northwest China and other regions.

3. Hyalomma asiaticum: The scutum is reddish-brown, with eyes and marginal festoons, the palps are long and cylindrical, punctations on the scutum are sparse, the cervical grooves are relatively deep and long and form oblique grooves, and the spiracular plates are pipe-shaped. It is distributed in Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Northwest China.

4. Ornithodoros papillipes: The body is oval, gradually narrowing at the front end, with rounded and blunt body margins, marginal folds on the dorsal edge, the body surface is granular, there are several pairs of disc-like depressions on the anterior and middle parts, and the postanal transverse groove is relatively straight, intersecting the postanal median groove at almost a right angle. It is distributed in **.