We write a lot of posts about ticks and tick prevention for our pets. Only chickens and poultry will actually eat ticks but the rest of our animals aren't safe from these parasites.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is issuing a new warning about ticks after the reported deaths of five cows in North Carolina.
Richmond.com reports that the cows died of acute anemia caused by the infestations. The Asian longhorned tick is responsible for these deaths. This tick is an exotic species from East Asia first found in the U.S. back in 2010 in West Virginia.
"More than 1,000 ticks were on the body of the dead young bull brought to the Northwestern Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab. Four other cows died in the same way."
This video from the Mayo Clinic provides some details on this specific tick.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrqthC7Dx4p/
The newsobserver.com tells pet owners to check pets and livestock for ticks regularly.
There have been no known cases of people getting sick from Asian longhorned ticks in the United States, according to the CDC. But, the CDC said, "In other countries, bites from these ticks can make people and animals seriously ill."
Using a tick preventative is key for your animals! These tick infestations sound horrible. More than 1,000 ticks are hard for me to wrap my mind around. We use Credelio with our dogs which is for fleas and ticks.
This specific tick is said to be an aggressive biter and even though we talk about a variety of tick species in most of our related articles (e.g. lone star tick) it's important to understand that intense infestations can happen with any of them.
What tick prevention are you using? Share this post! Tell us in the comments below!
