Amelioration of fly annoyance in dairy cattle by using illuminated fly traps

Abstract

Blood-sucking and biting flies are a significant source of annoyance to warm-blooded animals. Behavioural changes in animals may include attempts to pursue, remove or avoid the disturbance caused by the fly by means of body movement. In the presesnt study the behaviour during a 10 min period in each four-hour interval i.e. 1 AM, 5 AM, 9 AM, 1 PM, 5 PM and 9 PM was analysed and noted for inclusion in the ethogram. The cows with light trap (treatment) were compared with those without light traps (control) to study the effectivenss of the fly trap in reducing annoyance in cattle. All the seven avaoidance behaviours were counted such as head movement, ear shaking, tail movement, skin twitching, licking, kicking on belly and restlessness and were recorded by scan method. The results of this study indicated that the incidence of all the seven fly avoidance behaviours were significantly higher (p<0.01) in the control group. It could also be concluded that the occurance of all the behaviours in the control group at 1 PM were significantly high followed by 5 PM. The findings of the study suggest that fly activity in dairy farms was high during the afternoon hours followed by evening time and illuminated fly traps could be used effectively in controlling flies, so that the fly avoidance behavior by cattle was reduced on dairy farms.