Abstract

Rhipicephalus microplus tick infestations in livestock cause the world’s largest ectoparasite problem in tropical and subtropical regions. The fight against ticks must also be carried out taking into account aspects related to the presence of non-parasitic stages in the grass. The integral management of ticks as a control method and the appropriate combination of its components can focus on breaking the balance of these larval populations, which are mainly found in grazing. Basic larval tick population sampling systems have been used for direct manual harvesting from vegetation. The most widely used method has been dragging. The objective of this work is to determine, by means of dragging methods with the flag method, the infestation of the larval stage of ticks, under natural conditions of pasture infestation. The study will be carried out in pastures with an area of 26 hectares, dedicated to grazing, divided into 7 pastures of 3 hectares, where a herd of cattle is exploited. The samples will be obtained crossing the zigzag zone and randomly. In the pastures, transects were drawn along them, the samplings will be carried out during the month of June. From the paddocks reviewed, tick larvae were collected only in two of the 7 reviewed, 91 larvae in one and 6 larvae in another. The larvae were identified as Rhipicephalus microplus.

Keywords

R. microplus, infestation, paddocks, larval tick, pastures