Livestock farmers battle drug-resistant ticks to boost yields

What you need to know:

  • Livestock farmers across the country are faced with rampant animal deaths due to drug-resistant ticks, writes Lominda Afedraru

Ticks are one of the leading vectors of diseases in the livestock farming community in Uganda and elsewhere.
Farmers across the country are faced with the challenge of resistant ticks that are failing to respond to acaricides leading to death of animals throughout the country.

In Uganda, the major tick-borne diseases causing death of animals are East Coast Fever (ECF), anaplasmosis which causes swelling in the animal gallbladder and Babesiosis sometimes known as Redwater and they cause serious constraints to productivity of exotic cattle and their crossed species.

These are spread by two types of ticks, the blue tick and red tick which cause East Coast Fever with symptoms of the animals passing urine with blood, hard stool and swelling ears.

Other symptoms include blood in urine, high temperature often 41 degrees Celsius, drop in milk production, abortion in pregnant animals, pale eyes and gums, including loss of appetite.

The Director of Mbarara Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MbZARDI), Dr Halid Kirunda, explains that farmers have been faced with the challenge of acaricide failure since 2012.
He says the problem is rampant in western and central Uganda where farmers keep exotic cattle.

The acaricide failure is due to farmers failing to follow the right procedure in applying the chemicals coupled with unwanted practices such as using the same type for more than the required two year period. Other practices include applying different types of chemicals on the animals at ago.

The recommended period for one type of acaricide usage is between two to three years and after this period a farmer has to switch to another type. However, many farmers do not follow this procedure.
There are three classes of acaricides recommended for usage in Uganda. These are; organophosphate acaricides, synthetic pyrethroids and Amitrazicide.

The practice
Farmers tend to use these acaricides concurrently for two weeks. Unfortunately, the more frequent the acaricide is applied on an animal, the more resistant the ticks become.

There is also the challenge of dipping where farmers take long to clean up the dip and as well as change the chemical. In most cases, farmers spray the chemicals in their kraals using pieces of cloths, brooms, while others use wrong pumps such as hand spray pumps recommended for spraying crops.

A number of farmers do not follow the procedure for mixing the chemicals and a number of them purchase expired acaricides from auction markets.

About 42 per cent of farmers store acaricides in kraals which is wrong.

Dr Khalid notes that in the past, farmers never faced the challenge of resistant ticks. He attributes this to the intervention by Ministry of Agriculture that carried out zoning. It was observed that farmers in northern Uganda used a particular class of acaricides for two years while those in western, eastern and central Uganda used another class. It was done on rotational basis, which is no longer the case.

Survey
A lot of research has been carried to assess the impact of the drug-resistant ticks.
In a survey carried by experts from MbZARDI in the 10 agro ecological zones, it was discovered that farmers in Jinja sought for information of application of acaricides from veterinary officers but the issue of tick resistance is low.