At this year’s National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention, Farm Director KC Sheperd caught up with Dennis Myer, Director of Central Life Science, to talk about flies. Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is featuring comments from that conversation in today’s BeefBuzz.
Central Life Science has long been researching economic losses, discomfort, and the spread of disease caused by flies. They also research ways to control the pests.
“We control flies differently than most, in that we don’t use insecticides,” Myer said. “We use IGR or insect growth regulator.”
IGRs affect a part of the insect’s life cycle, usually the larval stage. It prevents the insect from becoming an adult so that it cannot reproduce.
Myer explained that over time, flies can grow resistant to most sprays on the market today; whereas there has been no known resistance to IGRs.
IGRs are administered through livestock lick tubs, and once passing through the animal, the IGR vanishes from the environment within a week reducing harm to beneficial insects.
One little-known way that horn flies harm cattle is by biting the teat ends of the udder on mama cows. This can cause mastitis and the shutdown of the affected quarter which translates to poor weaning weights on calves and lengthens the time before the cow can be bred again. Mastitis can also cause additional abortions which costs the producer even more.
Because IGRs disrupt entire generations of flies, reapplication becomes reduced over time, and feeding lick tubs is less labor intensive than fly-spraying cows.
More information can be found at centralflycontrol.com or by researching the products: ClariFly and Altocid.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
