Livestock Lice Control: Garlic Powered Solutions

Winter brings thicker coats, closer quarters, and (all too common) lice problems to farms across the country. As the temperatures drop, infestations spread more easily and are harder to spot as these external parasites thrive spending more time indoors with your animals. Let’s learn more about these pests and how to protect your herd from the inside out with the power of garlic.

Know Your Enemy: Types of Cattle Lice

Two common types of lice are behind the majority of cattle infestations: 

• Biting lice: eat skin debris
• Sucking lice: suck blood from the host

Lice spend their entire life cycle on their host and can only survive off host for a couple of days. Species type and temperatures affect their life cycle timeline, but here is a basic average:

• Females lay and adhere eggs at the base of the cattle’s hair and can stay in place for about 2 weeks until hatching.
• From the eggs hatch nymphs that can take around 3 weeks to mature into adult lice.
• The adult louse then lives another 2-3 weeks, laying at least 1 egg per day.

This rapid life cycle means infestations can spread quickly before you even notice a problem.

A Note about Mange Mites

While lice are larger and typically easier to spot, mange mites are much smaller (like the size of a pinprick). Mange mites also cause skin irritation and lesions which can sometimes feed the biting lice populations which eat skin debris, creating the perfect storm. 

Livestock Lice Symptoms

Because lice steal energy and nutrients from your animals, prevention and early intervention are key.

Early Symptoms:

• Constant rubbing or scratching
• Hair loss
• Raw spots
• Thickened skin

Advanced Symptoms:

• Large hairless patches
• Reduced weight gain or weight loss
• Anemia
• Skin infections
• Pink eye (bacterial or viral eye infections spread by bites)
• Anaplasmosis (blood parasite attack on red blood cells that affects their ability to carry oxygen)

Garlic for Natural Lice Prevention

Garlic is a long-lasting, feed-based lice solution that works from the inside out. When ingested, garlic’s sulfur compounds (like allicin) are broken down and secreted through the skin and breath, naturally driving away biting pests along the way. These compounds do not get stored in fat, muscle, or milk stores so you don’t have to worry about it affecting the flavor and quality of meat or milk!

And unlike with topical sprays and insecticides, lice/flies/ticks do not develop a resistance to garlic. So you can stop worrying about switching ingredients and constant reapplications. 
Redmond 10 Fine with Garlic is a simple way to give your animals minerals and pest prevention all in 1 product your herd will love. Offer free choice year round to reduce the harmful effects of each season’s biting pests. 

“I just received shipment of Selenium 90 with Garlic, I feed it year round and have found that it has eliminated lice problems. After two full years of Redmond salt and conditioner my cows have never looked better.” -K.Jones

Other Lice Biosecurity Tips

Here are a few other helpful tips to give you a multi-pronged plan of attack to get ahead of winter lice infestations.

• Increase sunlight exposure: keep animals outdoors as much as possible (weather permitting) and avoid close confinement.
• Free choice minerals: keep body condition scores high and reduce mineral deficiencies. Pay extra attention to immune boosting minerals and coat health minerals like selenium, copper, and zinc.
• Quarantine: thoroughly check incoming animals before introducing them to the herd
• Isolation: remove infected animals to reduce spread, minimize communal grazing with other herds
• Reduce stress: Avoid or delay potentially stressful environmental triggers if possible

• Select for resistance: cull and process animals that are chronic spreaders to reduce secondary infections

With our wide range of sea and volcanic mineral products, Redmond is here to help your herd and farm thrive. Give us a call so we can help you get back to what you love about raising animals!

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