Tick Clearing

No-one wants the frustration or cost of being held up longer than necessary – prevention with effective pre-treatment is your best bet.

For cattle from the Atherton Tablelands or Wet Coast (or from nearly anywhere after a big wet season) we will generally recommend both an internal and external pre-treatment, ie. Injection AND plunge dip, then presenting on the cross-over time intervals.

Wait times:

Plunge Dip or Spray       = 4 to 7 days

Injection or Pour-On      = 6 to 9 days

(Note: timeframes apply to approved chemicals only as per labels or DPI off-label permits)

We define 4 days as 96 hours, and if there’s a heavy tick load to begin with we will often recommend waiting the extra day or two to allow the ticks to dry out fully.

Remember if we find a juicy tick, that’s classed by the DPI as a fail, and you must start the pre-treatment cycle again.

Please note we can only scratch and dip in daylight hours. Each individual animal must be scratched in 3 key places. Allowing adequate time for thorough scratching while ensuring animal welfare and worker safety is essential.

The most common error we see with on-farm pre-treatments is incorrect dosage. Use your farm-scales to weigh each animal and ensure your applicator/injector is calibrated at regular intervals (including the operator 😊). The second most common error we experience is incorrect timing of treatments/presentation. If you are unsure just give us a call to confirm.

We have a different version of the 7 P’s (Proper Prior Planning Prevents P* Poor Performance) which is:- Plan ahead, Pre-treat with Precision, Present on time, Pass.

The capacity of our plunge dip is 25,000 litres so it is deep, wide and long to ensure full submergence of each animal and no piggy-backing. A high pressure mechanical air-stirrer also means we don't have to send cattle through twice as stirrers. Our dip strength is tested at least monthly and always after each re-fill. We are audited by the DPI annually and records can be made available to you on request.

A map of the cattle tick line in Queensland can be found here:- Tick Zones Qld, and details of the Queensland regulations regarding moving cattle between zones can be found here:- Cattle Tick Regulations.

Give Brian a call, you can usually reach him between 7am and 9pm, 7 days a week, or leave a message and he’ll be sure to return your call.