Tag Archives: Fever Tick
Quarantine Quandary, Update on the Texas Cattle Fever Ticks
By: Gilda V. Bryant, Working Ranch Magazine, gv.bryant@gmail.com In the late 1800s, Texas Cattle Fever caused extensive cattle losses. To combat this deadly disease caused by ticks, the Bureau of Animal Industries, predecessor of the USDA (see Looking Back, September/October 2017 issue, p. 162), developed the first tick eradication program in 1906. When ticks were controlled across the southeastern U.S., the USDA and Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) established a permanent quarantine zone along the Texas – Mexico border in 1943. Tick eradication was the preferred control method. Two… Read More →
New year, old pests: Fever tick and screwworm
Writer: Dr. Joe Paschal, 361-265-9203, j-paschal@tamu.edu The fever tick Far south, along the Rio Grande on the U.S. and Mexican border, there is a reminder of one of the most successful livestock parasite eradication programs in the U.S., if not the world – the USDA Fever Tick Eradication Program. This program began in 1906 by the forerunner of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), although limited efforts to control parasites began 20 years earlier. Its purpose was to remove the ticks that carried cattle fever babesiosis, caused… Read More →
New Year – Old Pest
Writer: Joe C. Paschal, Livestock Specialist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, 361-265-9203, j-paschal@tamu.edu As we begin a new year we are faced with an old pest, the fever tick. The fever tick (actually there are two different species) once ranged as far north as Virginia and is the host for the blood parasite that causes Cattle or Tick Fever. This disease can kill as many as 90% of the affected cattle. Beginning in 1906, the USDA Fever Tick Eradication Program eliminated fever ticks down to a 500 mile stretch… Read More →