Subject: Re: Sucking Lice on cattle (fwd)

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 May 1997 22:30:21 WST

Some animal husbandry ideasa

At 09:42 PM 5/3/97, [email-masked] wrote:
>From: [email-masked] (Bruce Ward)
[snip]
>Lice control
>But, he is now looking for some help on an organically acceptable treatment
>for cattle sucking (Haematopinus spp.) and biting lice (Damalinia bovis).
>I'm not totally convinced he has an economic problem, given the health of
>the animals.  He is now using high sulphur blocks, and that may be enough
>to keep things under control.

Try diatomacious earth (DE) "dusters". I've seen them rigged up as burlap
(course woven hemp bags for feed, etc.) sewn to form a tube about as big as
your lower leg with a heavy wire or light chain or rope run through and
suspended loosely from two posts or in a gate where the animals walk thru.
They can be filled about half full and last several days. Also, since the
animals like to rub their necks they can be suspended from a post to a
ground anchor. Beware, however. These things develop a nasty habit of
triping one when you're the busiest or in the dark!

I've manually dusted it on and brushed it in when only a few animals are
affected. In either case, DE isn't much good if it rains, and has to be
redone with dry DE.

Should use a dust mask when you work with it. Of course, this is true for
any dry powder, regardless what it is.

Incidentally, the kelp works also to spray your garden plants with.

All in all, for the long run maybe the genetics of the animals also needs
tuning a bit to take care of themselves, and I can see your point about
maybe not being unnecessary anyway. Maybe HE needs a cup of coffee and take
it easy.

... my $.02-worth (won't pay the sales tax on a cup of coffee)

Dick

R. H. (Dick) Richardson                     (512) 471-4128 office
Zoology Dept.                                     371-1885 home
University of Texas                               471-9651 FAX
Austin, TX 78712