Subject: Bont tick and natural tickisides (fwd)

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 11:56:19 WST

From: [email-masked]
cc: [email-masked] (Norman Neave)

Dear all,
-----------------snip---------
Can anyone help please,
                       Vic
_________________End__________

I have a client who has a problem with the bont tick and the resulting 
heartwater etc. They are also currently battling a lot with Nagana. This is a 
disease spread by the tsetse fly which is reinfesting its natural habitat now 
that it is immune to the DDT spread in huge tonnages there in earlier days.

Innoculations for heartwater etc are being quite effective but teat loss on the 
cows from the ticks them selves remain a problem. They do dip still, 
occasionally, strategically and when necessary but would like to stop using 
chemicals for the sake of the dung beetles there. He has proper Zululand 
dungbeetles which one sees so little of these days. They are about 2 inches 
long and would knock you off your horse if you were going at speed.

So do you know of any natural remedies for these ticks and possibly for the 
tsetse?

The blokes name is Norman Neave. He is from Boomerang Farms near Matubatuba in 
Zululand, Natal South Africa. His e-mail address which I will put on a request 
to have him attatched to this conference on another posting, is [email-masked]

Thanks Dick (Africa) 
----
Dick and Judy Richardson
Whole Concepts
PO Box 10440
Vorna Valley 1686
South Africa
Tel:27-11-3153027 
Fax:27-11-8053962
E-mail: [email-masked]

---

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 12:13:52 WST

>Dear all

Guinea fowl have been sucessfully used at Baobab Farms, Mombasa, Kenya for
controlling TseTse fly.  The female TseTse fly retains it's eggs till the
larvae stage, and are then placed in moist soil, where they form a pupa.
Guinea fowl scratch around in the soil searching for insects and their
larvae.  Birds, ants, wasps and spiders all help too.  The dung beetles as
you probably know, do a good job in controlling other flies.

As for ticks, Oxpeckers were successful at Baobab Farms until they were
displaced almost overnight by the Indian House Crow. The crows, introduced
originally to clean up rubbish from the streets of Zanzibar (!), are unable
to get to ticks around the eyes and mouths of the cattle/eland/oryx.  They
are having success in getting rid of the crows with birds of prey such as
the Sparrow hawk, but these crows are particularly cunning (and almost
vindictive it would seem) so it probably won't be long before they are
back.  Guinea fowl and Crested Cranes have been introduced to control ticks
in the grass at Baobab Farms.

As for tickisides, there are a lot of uses being made now of the neem tree
(Azadirachta indica), insecticides for one.  Not sure if there are
tickicides based on Neem, but I wouldn't be surprised.   Here in the UK, a
few years ago there was a lot of pressure to ban organophosphate sheep dips
and there had been some litigation by farmers said to be suffering nerve
damage.  One of the side effects of moving to a more natural chemical,
based on pyrethroids, is that they have been found to persist for a long
time in waterways, and are thought to be responsible for a sudden decline
in river health in some areas, but pyrethroids (from the pyrethrium plant),
may be a solution if you can avoid watercourses.  Don't know of any
commercial brand-names unfortunately.

Regards,
Kenn.

K.H. von Kaufmann, 
Richmond,
London, UK.
[email-masked]
All KHvK electronic documents PGP signed and independently PGP timestamped
([email-masked]).  Timestamped versions Public key
available on request.

---

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 10:56:45 WST

Saw this story and it was permaculture in Action.
Vic

Reply-to: [email-masked]
CC: [email-masked]
Priority: normal
X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.40)

Dear Norman
I got this message and think I may have an idea for you. My wife 
Paula and I manage the Africa Centre for Holistic Management Ranch at 
Matetsi in Zimbabwe. We have been running a small herd of cattle here 
for almost a year without dipping and so far have had no fatalities 
from tick borne disease. We have to kraal our cattle at night because 
of lion and hyaena and we have 25 laying hens which live in the kraal 
with the cattle. These hens are absolutely brilliant detickers and 
the cattle have learnt to stand still for the chickens to peck off 
the ticks on their bellies and groins, the hens even jump to get the 
higher ones. We also have a healthy population of ox-peckers but I 
would say that the hens do a better job with less stress on the 
cattle. A couple of the cows don't like the hens and have noticeably 
more ticks on them. We got the idea from some people who had seen a 
guy in South Africa do it with a big herd. What he did was he had a 
big flock of hens in moveable cages which he would put near whichever 
water point the cattle were using and they would then do their job 
while the cattle drank. We had a bad tick problem until we put the 
hens in the kraal. The hens are just ordinary layers and the only 
thing you have to do is make sure they have not been debeaked. Hope 
this helps.
P.S. We get great eggs off the chickens, ticks are obviously very 
nutritious.

> To:            [email-masked] (Recipients of chrm-general)
> Subject:       Bont tick and natural tickisides
> Date:          Wed, 29 Jul 98 10:43:53 GMT
> Cc:            [email-masked] (Norman Neave)