Prevalence and Identification of Bovine Ixodid Ticks in Horo Guduru Animal Breeding and Research Center, Horo Guduru Wollega Zone, Western Ethiopia

Abstract

Background and Aim: Even though Ethiopia encounters considerable losses due to tick infestations, and existing research has reported the distribution and abundance of tick species across
different parts of the country, there are no evidences supporting the prevalence and distribution
of hard ticks at the Horo Guduru Animal Breeding and Research Center. Therefore, the main
objectives of this research are: to analyze the prevalence of ixodid ticks and identify them in the
study area as well as to provide baseline data on the relative distribution of tick species.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 409 cattle (305 local breed
(Horo breed) and 104 cross breed (Horo breed × Jersey breed) using simple random sampling
techniques for identification and determination of prevalence of ticks at the study area.
Results: In the present study, the overall prevalence of tick infestation was recorded as 78.23%.
Two tick genera were identified with the composition of Ambylomma (51.2%) and Rhipicephalus (48.8%). In the study area, four tick species were identified with their respective prevalence
of Rh. (B.) decoloratus (33.8%), A. variegatum (21.3%), Rh. e. evertsi (15%) and A. cohaerens
(29.9%). The prevalence of tick infestation was found to be significantly different (p<0.05)
between breeds with higher prevalence in local breed (Horo breed) (83.6%) than cross (Horo
breed × Jersey) (62.5%). The prevalence of tick infestation among age groups was highly prevalent in adult cattles (79.08%) relative to young (73.3%) cattles. The prevalence of ticks was
also highest in medium (81.4%) and lowest in good (73.4%) cattles respectively.
Conclusion: The overall prevalence rate of ixodid ticks in the current study area was 78.23%.
According to the present finding, the most important tick species that was intensively investigated were A. decolaratus, Rh. evertsi-evertsi, A. varigatum, and A. cohaerence. The study
indicated that there was a high burden of ticks in the discussed area.