With Insecticide ear tags, chemical rotation is needed to minimize pest resistance

Insecticide ear tags can be a great tool for managing pests like, horn flies and face flies during the summer months. To minimize the chance of pest resistance, you must do a good job rotating the tags using different active ingredients.

Beef cattle producers are encouraged to look at insecticide ear tags as one method of reducing pest populations on cows and calves in the summer months. In my area, the last couple of years have been great for pest populations and problems, like the spreading of pink eye, have arisen during the summer months due to those extremely high numbers of pests.

Proper use of the insecticide ear tags, including following the label on the number of tags you should use per animal is also a big factor in their success. With cows and bulls, better control can be achieved using two tags per animal.

Insecticide ear tags can have many different combinations of chemicals embedded in them. Horn flies have developed resistance to pyrethroid, so it’s important to rotate between chemical families to minimize further resistance. You should work with your veterinarian on a rotation schedule. 

Using an insecticide ear tag can help eliminate the horn flies that congregate on your animals, especially those that congregate around the eyes helping to spread problems like pink eye (which, if left unchecked, can become a major health issue in your herd). The problems take away from animal performance and decrease your overall profitability.

Caution! Always read and follow label directions for safe use of any pesticide!

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