Economic impact of horn flies on beef cattle

Michael Allim Jorge, Cristiene Rosa and Glauber Do Santos

Revista IPecege, 2016, vol. 2, issue 3

Abstract: The horn fly ( Haematobia irritans) is one of the main ectoparasites of cattle in current livestock farming in Brazil. Therefore, the objective was to evaluate the economic impact of this parasite in relation to weight gain and age at slaughter in beef cattle. The study was based on research by Bianchin et al. (2004), who conducted a study in the Cerrado region of Mato Grosso do Sul during the rainy season from October to May, the period of greatest parasite infestation. Data from 20 two-year-old castrated male Nellore cattle of the same initial weight were used, divided into two groups of ten animals: treated with insecticides versus untreated animals. Weight gain and slaughter age were evaluated to determine the efficiency and economic impact of each group. Animal performance showed a 16% increase in daily weight gain and a 32% reduction in slaughter age for animals treated with antiparasitic. Under these conditions, the positive economic impact was R$154.64 per animal. The results showed that the antiparasitic treatment is justified, as its effectiveness in reducing horn flies provided a positive economic impact for the beef cattle production system.

Keywords: Livestock; Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/386238/files/a ... Jorge%2Bet%2Bal..pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ipeceg:386238

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Revista IPecege from University of Sao Paulo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().