2 MISCELLANEOUS PUB. 25, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
FEBRUARY 
Look for signs of warbles on cattle and destroy 
the grubs. Get your neighbors to do the same. 
A concerted drive on this pest is necessary to 
eradicate ox warbles from a locality. 
Examine cattle for evidence of ox warbles in the form of lumps on 
the skin, especially along the back. If you find these, squeeze 
them out (fig. 2) and destroy them. Do not crush the warble, as 
this gives rise in rare instances to 
bad effects on the cattle, although 
most animals recover rather rap- 
idly. Grubs may also be destroy- 
ed by the use of the drug, Derris, 
as a wash, ointment, or powder, 
by pyrethrum ointment, by the 
injection of benzol or carbon tetra- 
chloride, or by the application of 
fine tobacco powder or nicotine 
dust. Get your neighbors to coop- 
erate by destroying warbles in 
their herds, so that the warbles on 
their places will not reinfest your 
cattle. In some places in the 
South ox warbles may begin to emerge early in December, and in 
parts of the Southwest in August, the time varying with the latitude 
and other factors. Write to the Department of Agriculture for 
information and advice. 
In many cases the methods of slaughtering on the farm and at 
small country slaughterhouses are such as to favor the spread of 
parasites. Offal is thrown out and allowed to decompose in an 
offensive manner. Dogs eat this material, and as parts of carcasses 
infested with tapeworm cysts are rejected as offal, this procedure per- 
mits dogs to become infested with tapeworms which they in turn 
carry to livestock and infest them with the bladder worms. Amon 
the tapeworms spread in this manner is the deadly hydatid which 
forms a cyst the size of an orange or larger in cattle, sheep, and swine, 
and inman. Its adult tapeworm stage is a tapeworm less than half 
an inch long in dogs. The intestines in offal often contain vast num- 
bers of eggs of worm parasites. The offal is also a prolific source of 
blowflies which breed in great numbers in it. This offal should be 
tanked or treated in such a way as to kill any parasite material it 
may contain, and disposed of in a way which prevents its becoming 
a public nuisance and a source of annoyance and danger. 
Fic. 2.—Extracting a warble from a cow’s back 
, 
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