Efficacy of Whole Crude Extract of Hard Ticks in the Treatment and Control of Tick Infestation in Livestock

Ticks infestation is the most common constraint to the livestock production in terms of drop in meat and milk production, decline in hide worth, physical damage to the skin of animals and susceptibility to infestation of tick borne parasitic infections. Conventionally acaricides are used in the treatment of tick infestation in livestock but potentially satisfactory alternative technique is the immunological control against ticks infestation. Therefore, this study was planned to investigate the effect of crude extract of hard ticks and its application as a vaccine against hard ticks of the cattle. For this purpose, ticks were collected from cattle and crude extract of ticks was prepared using standard procedures i.e. mixed with formalin, antibiotic and vegetable oil to prepare the vaccine. This vaccine was administered thrice (at weekly interval) in 15 cattle @ 1ml/50 Kg of the body weight of each animal accordingly. Fifteen cohort cattle of different age groups served as controls, administered with the standard acaricidal drug, ivermectin. At the end of each week post administration of this oil based whole crude larval extract, the number of hard ticks was counted with naked eye and the efficacy of this crude tick vaccine was determined in terms of reduction in tick number. Control of ticks and the clinical efficacy of the prepared vaccine were determined on the basis of number of ticks infesting the vaccinated and control group over 01-month period, post vaccination. The results revealed that physically the number of ticks were significantly reduced (P<0.05%) using crude larval extract vaccine (78.4%) than standard acaricidal drugs, ivermectin (63.24%) being conventionally used.