Flies on my cow, Please Help

[marie131]

Hello, I am hoping that someone can help me. My husband and I just recently purchased a Sharleigh (hope I spelled that coreectly) from a friend of ours. She is about a year old and we bought her so we can feed and then butcher her for meat. She came from a very large grass pasture and is now in a lot smaller pen. She still has a lot of room to run but it is nothing compared to what she had. I try to make it as nice as possible for her, ie pickiing up her poop and giving her a bunch of straw to lay on in the covered are which she likes. We have had her about 2 weeks and I just noticed last night a TON! of flies on her back. I have seen other cows before and have been raised around horses but these onces were bad. They wont even fly off of her when she flips her tail around. I had to go try and get them off myself and they still came right back. there are litterally hundreds of them and I need to know if they are harming her in any way. It looks like the hair is falling off but i dont know if cows shed around this time too. I was going to go into our ranching store tonight and pick up a bag of Permectrin dust for her to rub on. is that stuff ok? I just need to know if i am being over cautious cause a friend told me that there is no need and the flies cant hurt the cow. I dont want all my money in feed to go to waste if the flies are going to make her ill or something. please reply, thank you!

 

[dun]

Get a pour on insecticide, like UltraBoss, or one of the other dozen of them available. Too many flys can be bad, won;t kill them but makes them perform poorer. The dust will also work but it will have to be applied more freqently.
The breed is spelled Charolais

 

[marie131]

thank you. Yeah i called the farm store and they said the dust is in a bag that you put in an area they will walk under often. can i use that and the other stuff? The hard part is that she will not come within 10 feet of anyone. She is still getting use to us. any advice?

 

[marie131]

I just called another feed store about an hour away and they have something called saber pour on insectiside. Have you heard of it? you only have to apply not more then every two weeks and it sounds like it might be better then the dust. I have looked everywhere but can seem to find if it will get into the meat. We are going to butcher her the end of this month.

 

[dun]

From Sabers site: Leave a 7-day interval between last treatment and slaughter. Consult label for current use directions and precautions

if you can feed her real close to a fence and sneak up on tyhe outside you should (hopefully anyway) be able to pour it on her top line.

 

[marie131]

Thank you for the advice! i will let you know how it goes

 

[farmwriter]

Ultrasaber is the best fly control we have ever used. No ifs, ands, or buts.

 

[dogweed]

I think it is possible that you are being over cautious, is there any one in your specific area, not trying to sell a product that could tell you. It has to be pretty bad before the investment is worth it. If you are butchering the cow in a month you need some time that the cow is not around any insecticide before you want to eat it. What do you mean by smaller pen>? She has room to run?

 

[wbvs58]

The biggest thing is to get it in a quantity economical for one cow. Most don't have a real good shelf life for leftovers.

 

[CattleHand]

You can also get a spray gun and spray the inseticide on her while she is eating grain. Wont have to be that close that way if she runs everytime you get close.

 

[robertwhite]

You can always get a bottle of Permectrin (or even stronger type) and use a pump sprayer to soak down the cow. I hit mine with a sprayer while they are feeding and after the 1st time, they could care less. Spray will go at least 15 feet if needed.

:lol2: Cattlehand posted while I was typing.