Argentina from a British Point of View, and Notes on Argentine Life
History
Argentina from a British Point of View, and Notes on Argentine Life
Argentina -- Description and travel; Argentina -- Economic conditions; Argentina -- Social life and customs
After establishing itself on the animal, the tick becomes a blood
sucker, and at certain seasons animals running wild over unbroken camps,
become literally covered with these bichos; consequently the cattle fall
back in condition, and the mortality amongst them mounts up to an
appallingly large percentage. To obviate this the dip is used, and has
come into general use. The animals are collected from afar, and brought
into the corral (a strong enclosure), from which there is a wooden
passage, having many contrivances useful for marking, branding, and
dehorning cattle, all of which are used in their due season; but for
dipping purposes this passage terminates in a precipitous slope, and the
animals are gently forced along it from the corral to plunge suddenly
into a prepared bath of a strong solution, which kills every tick; so it
follows, that if the animal has been totally submerged, it is absolutely
free from the parasite. The object of dipping is to kill all kinds of
insects and parasites which trouble the bovine race; especially so the
common Louse (the Dermatodectis Bovis) which is the scab producer. The
worst pest is, however, the cattle tick or Garrapata, and known under
the scientific name of Boophilus Annulatus.
This latter is the harbinger of the microbe of Texas Fever or Tristeza,
as it is known in the Argentine.
The remedies that are principally employed are of a tarry basis and
prepared so as to be easily mixed with water, usually in the proportion
of 1 to 100.
The amount of mixture used is 2.60 litres, and the cost works out at 10
cents. per head.
The greatest number of animals that the Santa Fé Land Company have been
able to put through the dip in a day is 6,700, working from 6 a.m. to 5
p.m.
Animals certainly are frightened the first time they take this bath, but
very soon they find the comfort of its effect, and come to like and
enjoy it. The cattle we saw dipped to-day had mostly been through the
process several times before, and walked calmly down the passage,
seeming to enjoy their scramble through the dip. On emerging from the
dip, the animals stand in a small corral on the other side, and are kept
there for a while to allow the liquor to drain off their hides, and find
its way back to the tank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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