The sheep tick,Ixodes ricinusL. Eradication by dipping sheep

Author:

Heath G. B. S.

Abstract

Because of its ability to cany diseases, the sheep tick should be classed as one of the most important ectoparasites of British sheep. No reason for the differences between individual susceptibility to infestation has been found.Commercial arsenical dips are excellent acaricides, but give little protection from reinfestation, and are no better than watery solutions of sodium arsenite at the same concentrations of arsenic. In the work reported, addition of derris to the commercial dip did not improve it.Coal-tar fractions which were tested were of little value in tick control, and five finely divided inert powders were not acaricidal.D.D.T. and B.H.C. give promise of being of real value in controlling ticks; since the former is not effective against sheep scab, it is suggested that future research on anti-tick dips be confined to preparations containing B.H.C., the γ content of which is probably about as effective as D.D.T. against ticks when used at a 5 times greater dilution. Two commercial dips containing B.H.C. were found to be of little value.A method of anti-tick treatment which involves walking sheep through a shallow bath of dip holds great promise.Treatment of pastures with D.D.T. appeared to have no effect upon the tick population, and neither D.D.T. nor B.H.C. was effective against ticks when administered to sheepper os.By stocking a pasture with sheep which were dipped sufficiently often to prevent any female tick from engorging, the tick population was almost completely eradicated in one year. Sheep which were born in the pasture in April 1948, and remained there until October 1949, were not dipped during 1949 and, as far as is known, were not at any time infested by ticks. Pastures from which all sheep were excluded gradually lost their tick populations, but a few ticks remained at the end of 3 years. This may be because, in the main enclosure, almost every tick would have an opportunity of attaching on a dipped sheep, and would be killed; in the unstocked enclosures, lack of opportunity to attach on sheep would result in a larger number of ticks infesting wild animals and so a few ticks would be carried over from year to year. This result is unlikely to have any practical application at present, because ridding a small area (e.g. a farm or a valley) of ticks would result in the sheep of that area losing their immunity to tick-borne diseases, and re-introduction of ticks might bring disastrous results. Also, it should be pointed out that work quoted in the text gives the result of an attempt at eradication in one county of Britain. Among other things, the fact that cattle, hare, and deer were absent immediately prohibits application of the results to many other areas of Great Britain. However, it appears that, in the absence of hare and deer, it might be possible to rid an area of ticks by adequate treatment of domestic animals.It is a pleasure to acknowledge the helpful advice received from Dr H. H. Green of the Veterinary Laboratory at Weybridge, during the course of this work. The work was carried out under the auspices of a coordinating committee of the Agricultural Research Council and is published by permission of that Council, and of the Veterinary Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

Infectious Diseases,Animal Science and Zoology,Parasitology

Cited by 5 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3