Northland and the east coast of the North Island is home to the New Zealand cattle tick, Haemaphysalis Longicornis.

The New Zealand tick needs to feed on three different hosts before reaching adult stage.

The New Zealand tick is a 3 host tick, meaning it requires to feed on a host animal, fall off full of blood, change to a different larval stage, then feed again and repeat the process before finally developing into an adult tick and lay eggs in the soil to begin the process again.

Ticks like the warm weather and so only appear from August on through the spring till finally completing their cycles by late autumn. The small larval stages are hard to see, but can be very irritating to the animals they attach to.

The tick is called a cattle tick, but is happy to attach to your cat, dog, sheep, deer and horses as well as cattle.

The adult ticks love to feed on blood and in large numbers can be very detrimental to the health of your stock, leading to death in young fawns in particular, and can leave cattle and sheep quite anaemic due to the blood loss.

The good news about our tick is that it is not known to carry any blood born diseases, such as Babesia, tick paralysis or encephalitis, as ticks in other countries do.

This year has started with a boom for ticks, so what are your best options for control?

The best product for cattle is Bayticol, which is applied as a pour-on, and will kill existing tick infestations, plus resist new infections for 3-4 weeks. It has a nil meat and milk withhold period, so can be used any time. It is licensed for cattle and deer.

Horses are a more difficult proposition as there is no long term tick control product licensed for them. Bayticol has been used, but is often an irritant, and may produce hair loss on the horse. Tick ear tags (Python), which are designed for use in deer have been tried, but aren’t perfect. Ripcord, a synthetic long acting pyrethron spray works well, but some people find it irritating so wear gloves when applying.

Permoxin, another synthetic pyrethron, is less irritant, but is easily broken down by sunlight, so needs to be applied on a more regular basis.

Ticks on cats and dogs are a little easier to control. Frontline, the flea pour-on has a claim for ticks and is effective on both cats and dogs. Prat-tic is also a flea and tick pour-on for dogs only, and has a 4 week claim for control. 

Paihia (09) 402 8584
Kerikeri (09) 407 7354
Kawakawa (09) 404 0842
Waipapa (09) 401 6654
Kaikohe (09) 401 1536