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Cattle Ticks
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Each year 150 million dollars is lost to Australia's beef and dairy industries because of cattle tick infecting our cattle. Cattle ticks are ecto-parasites which live in the coat of the cattle and suck their blood. By doing this, many diseases like tick fever can be transferred causing poor health, and the effects can be fatal. Tick fever is a malaria-like disease and is described by Peter Willadsen as having produced "one of the biggest disasters in our agricultural history." It is not unusual for 1000 female ticks to be found on one cow at a time. Together they can suck more than ½ a litre of blood in one day. The female ticks then drop to the ground to reproduce producing another cycle of ticks to infest cattle. Tick fever or red water is an important disease of cattle and up to 7 million animals in northern and eastern parts of Australia are potentially at risk. Tick fever vaccines are the most reliable and practical tools for long term control of the disease and are manufactured by the Tick Fever Research Centre (TFRC) of the Department of Primary Industries, Queensland, Australia. These pages provide information about the disease, its management, diagnosis, treatment and prevention by vaccination. Tick fever (babesiosis) is an important disease of cattle with up to 7 million animals in northern and eastern parts of Australia potentially at risk. The disease was probably introduced as early as 1829 with cattle from Indonesia infested with the cattle tick Boophilus microplus. The initial spread of tick fever in the late 1800s had a devastating effect on the cattle industry. In Queensland alone, it caused cattle numbers to decrease from 5.5 million to 2.5 million in little more than a decade. Since that time, improved methods of control have done much to limit the effect of the disease but it is still costing as much as A$28 million each year in lost production. Cause Babesiosis is caused by two organisms in Australia: Babesia bovis and Babesia bigemina. Of the two species, B bovis is by far the most important cause of disease and mortality, causing about 80 per cent of outbreaks and an even higher percentage of deaths. Both Babesia species are single cell organisms that develop in the red blood cells of cattle and are transmitted in Australia by the cattle tick Boophilus microplus.
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