Lice: costly hitchhikers/.

Fall is the time of year when lice love to hitch a ride on the backs of cattle for the winter.

There are five types of lice that are costing cattlemen thousands of dollars when their cattle lose weight and become susceptible to all kinds of disease. There are three types of bloodsucking lice, one biting louse and one tail louse.

Biting lice feed on particles of hair, scabs, and excretions from the skin.

The tail louse, prevalent in the southern states attacks cattle. You can tell when these lice are present, as much of the hair on the tail is missing.

The blood-sucking lice feed by piercing the animal's skin and drawing blood. Animals that are heavily infested may be weakened by loss of blood. They become more susceptible to disease. Lice keep beef cattle from making maximum weight gains and will reduce milk production in dairy cattle.

Lice infestations are usually heavy during the winter and spring months, therefore it's important to treat for lice in the fall to delay and minimize the lice buildup during colder months.

Most insecticides are effective in controlling blood-sucking and biting lice. Your choice depends on whether you plan to spray, dip or dust. Recommendations for beef and dairy cattle are different. Your county agricultural extension agent will have the latest information on the control of lice.

For treating tail lice, you may need to spray the tail or dip it in an insecticide.

Never use more insecticide than is recommended. Young animals are susceptible to overdoses of most preparations. These strong mixtures can injure or poison stock and too little may not control the lice, so follow directions carefully.

In the book Natural Cattle Care, (Acres U.S.A., ISBN 0-911311-68-8), Pat Coleby states due to modern chemical farming, cattle feeds are lacking the proper quantities of sulfur, which may increase the likelihood of lice. Feeding sulfur in licks will help to keep the cattle lice and exterior parasite-free. Keeping the sulfur content under 2% of the diet is safe, so a cow could be given a heaping tablespoon of sulfur a day if she had an infestation, and the lice would leave over a period of five or six days.

A top dressing of sulfur seems to work equally well. Rubbing two or three handfuls of sulfur along the spine is enough (diatomaceous earth may also help).

Coleby also states cattle lacking sulfur aren't absorbing and digesting feed as well as they should. Top-dressing the feed with gypsum (have the feed analyzed-you don't want to add too much) will increase the sulfur levels.

THOMAS LA MANCE

PREWITT, NEW MEXICO