A prospective study was conducted to determine the prevalence of tick’s infestation in cattle under the extensive system of management in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria. A total of 300 heads of cattle comprising 160 females and 140 males were examined, out of which, 202 (67.3%) were found to be infested with one or more species of ticks. Tick infestation was significantly higher (P < 0.05) in male cattle (79.3%) and adults (87.3%) than in females (56.9%) and young cattle (56.4%) and calves (32.1%). This study revealed that the males were 1.8 times more susceptible to tick infestation than the females and adult cattle 1.5 and 2.7 times more susceptible to tick infestation than the young cattle and calves respectively. Bunaji breeds had the highest tick infestation of 88.9%, followed by Red Bororo with 57.5%, Bokoloji, 47.5% and Sokoto Gudali, 46.2% respectively (P < 0.05). Bunaji breed is 1.5 times more susceptible to tick infestation than the Red Bororo, and 1.8 and 1.9 times more than Bokoloji and Sokoto Gudali respectively. A total of 2009 ticks were collected from six genera, Amblyomma (44.2%) being more the abundant, followed by Rhipicephalus (17.0%), Boophilus (14.8%) and Hyalomma (13.1%). The genus Dermacentor and Ornithodorus have low prevalence of 6.0% and 4.5% respectively. A significant number (n = 1526; 76.0%) of the total ticks collected and identified were found during the wet season while only 483 (24.05) occurred during the dry season. Infestations of Ambylomma variegatum was the highest (44.2%), followed by Boophilus decoloratus (14.2%), Hyalomma truncatum (13.1%), and Rhipicephalus sanguineus (l 1.5%). Dermacenlor andersoni, Rhipicephalus evertsi and Ornithodorus moubata recorded a prevalence of 6.0%, 5.5% and 4.5% respectively. The 300 blood samples examined, 40 (13.3%) were found to be infected with blood parasites. Bokoloji was significantly (P<0.05) infected with Babesia spp. (12.5%), Anaplasma (7.5%) and Theileria spp. (7.5%) than Bunaji breed with 3.9% and 5.8% of Babesia spp. and Anaplasma respectively with no case of Theileria. All the engorged ticks examined for parasites by haemolymph smear were negative for the parasites. It was concluded from this study that cattle in Zaria Local Government Areas are infected by ticks of the genus Amblyomma, Rhipicephalus, Boophilus, Hyalomma, Dermacentor and Ornithodorus and males, adults and Bunaji breeds were more susceptible to ticks infestation than the females, young and calves, Red Bororo, Bokoloji and Sokoto Gudali breeds. The high prevalence of the ticks was attributed to inadequate and constant tick control coupled with the extensive nature of grazing which was largely responsible for the occurrence of ticks in the study areas The study recommends strategic tick control using suitable acaricides, public enlightenment of cattle breeders and intensive system of management as parts of measures to control and prevent tick infestation in cattle.

Prevalence; Tick; Infestation; Extensive system

Cattle are one of the ruminants found abundantly in Nigeria and serve as a major source of beef and dairy products to the livestock industry and also of great economic significance to both the country and the herdsmen [1,2]. Bos indicus (Zebu) cattle are the main source of both meat and milk production in Nigeria [3]. However, diseases and poor health are considerable obstacles to good productivity of the livestock industries [4,5]. One of such is parasitism caused by different species of ecto- and endo-parasites [1].

Ticks are obligate blood feeding ecto-parasite of vertebrates particularly mammals, birds and reptiles throughout the world. Approximately 850 species have been described worldwide [6]. There are two well established families of ticks, the Ixodidae (hard tick) and the Argasidae (Soft tick). Ticks of domestic animals directly cause poor health and loss of production to their hosts by many parasitic mechanisms and transmit numerous kinds of viruses, bacteria and protozoa between domestic animals [7]. These microbes cause diseases which can be severely fatal to domestic animals and humans. Ticks are especially important to domestic animals in tropical and subtropical countries, where the warm climate enables many species of ticks to flourish. Also, the large populations of wild animals in warm countries provide a reservoir of tics and infective microbes that spread to domestic animals. Farmers of livestock animals use many methods to control ticks and related treatments are used to reduce infestation of companion animals. The relationship between ticks and diseases conditions such as anaemia and scabby skins of livestock necessitate this study which is aimed at determining the prevalence of ticks, types as well as their stage of growth in extensively grazed cattle in Zaria and environs and lastly to examine the blood of tick infested cattle for the presence of any blood parasites.

The smears were stained with May-Gruwald stain for 3 minutes, and then counter stained with Giemsa stain for 20 minutes [12,13]. The slides were gently washed with distilled water and dried using bloating paper mounted under light microscope and observed under oil immersion at X 400 magnifications to view the vermicules of parasites [12,13].

This is in line with those reported by [16] who reported a prevalence of 63.0% in cattle raised in Anambra State, Nigeria. The study is however; lower than the 81.5%, 88.49% and 89.58% observed by [17-19]. This result is higher than the 45.0%, 59.4% and 14.5% observed by [7,20,21] in Nigeria. The reasons for the disparity in the prevalence could be due to variations in the climatic and weather conditions of the study areas, the breeds of cattle examined and the frequency of tick controls adopted in these areas. For instance, [17,18] conducted their studies in a vegetated and forest areas of Zimbabwe and Nigeria, this present study was conducted in a Sudan savannah area of Nigeria with low vegetation and no absence of thick forest which do not favour the development and survivals of ticks. Also, some of the studies above like the ones by [7,20] targeted cattle brought to abattoirs for slaughter while the present study targeted cattle from extensively grazing system.

It implies that the males were 1.8 times more susceptible to tick infestation than the females. This is similar to report of [18] who stated that male cattle were significantly more infested (76.2%) than the females (21.6%). This trend of infestation was also reported by [22] in cattle in and around Assosa, Ethiopia. [18] explained that the exact cause of higher prevalence in males cannot be explained, but could be attributed to the fact that males were higher in number in the study areas and that they were in better conditions during the sampling period, also absence of pregnancy and lactation made male cattle better choice, since ticks are blood suckers, they prefer cattle of better condition to suck blood.

The fact that adult cattle were more infected than the young Ones was also in agreement with several studies. [18,22] both reported higher prevalence in adult cattle than young ones with the former reported 98.1% in adults and 22.7% in young while the later reported 96.66% in adults and 48.04% in young. It was evident from this study that tick infestation increase with increasing age, as older cattle had more tick infestation than the younger ones. There was strong evidence that age, nutrition and hormonal level of the host influence natural and acquired immunity of cattle to ticks [18,22]. Another possible explanation for high prevalence of ticks in adults than in young and calves is that adult cattle graze more in the fields which predispose them to different stages of ticks (larvae, nymphs and adult) which climb on their host and cause infestation. Management factors and immunological status of the young and adult cattle also may have some influences on their susceptibility to ticks. Calves recorded low prevalence (32.1%) of tick infestation than both young and older cattle in this study, which is in agreement with the observation by [22]. The possible reason could be that calves are normally maintained separately at homes from the rest of the cattle and therefore, shielded from high burden of parasites. Also calves graze on pastures at homes and on those provided by herds men, and which may probably not contain parasites, this is why calves are not much infested by ticks compared to others who roam about in groups searching for feeds.

The Bunaji (White Fulani) breeds are highly infested by the ticks with the prevalence of (88.9% followed by Red Bororo (57.5%), Bokoloji (47.5%) and Sokoto Gudali (46.2%) respectively (Table 4.4). This means that the Bunaji breed is 1.5 times more susceptible to tick infestation than the Red Bororo, and 1.8 and 1.9 times more than Bokoloji and Sokoto Gudali respectively. Similar trend of tick infestation was reported by [21] who revealed that the local breeds are highly infested by the ticks with the prevalence of 70.8% at North Shewa, Ethiopia. Similarly, [23,24] in their study (reported) that the presence of tick infestation in local breeds were high with a prevalence of 56.9% while in cross breeds, the prevalence were 30.4%. The present results is also similar to those reported by [18] who revealed that the prevalence of tick infestation was relatively (P<0.01) higher in White Fulani 40 (38.25%) than the Sokoto Gudali 28 (25.19%). They observed that White Fulani cattle were 2.15 times more susceptible to tick infestation than the Sokoto Gudali. Several authors have documented that tick load on animal was affected by breed and nutritional status, where they observed that the tick load was more on the White Fulani breed. The significant differences in tick infestation between different breeds of cattle examined in the present study was attributed to differences in the immunity against ticks between the breeds, differences in the management systems and lack of proper tick control measures on the Bunaji cattle breeds. In contrast to the present study, [16] showed that the N‘Dama and White Fulani cattle were more preponderant but recorded less infestation rates than Red Fulani and Sokoto Gudali which was fewer in numbers. They suggested that previous workers who reported more ticks on White Fulani than on darkly colored breeds claimed that white colour attracts ticks more readily than dark colours [16]. They also attributed it to the fact that ticks were easily noticed on white bodied animals and detached more frequently by herdsmen which resulted in fewer numbers observed on N’Dama and White Fulani cattle in their study.

Although, differences occurred in the distribution of species of ticks, infestations with the very Ambylomma variegamm was the highest (44.2%), followed by Boophilus decolorams (14.2%), Hyalomma trancaIum (13.1%), and Rhipicephalus sanguineus (11.5%). Dermacemar andersoni Rhipicephalus evertsi everrsi and Ornithodorus moubata recorded a prevalence of 6.0%. 5.5% and 4.5% respectively. These findings are in agreement with the report of [20] who examined cattle at Zaria abattoir for tick infestation and discovered that Ambylamma variegatum 27 (22.5%) was the commonest tick encountered, followed by Boophilus decolaratus, 21 (17. 5%), Hyalommasp 8 (6.7 %) and Rhipicephalus sanguineus 4(3.3 %). This same occurrence was reported by Yadeta (2015) in Gambella town of Gambella Regional State, Southwest Ethiopia. He revealed that the most prevalent hard tick genera collected from his study were Amblyomma, Hyalomma, Boophilus and Rhipicephalus.

Bunaji breed was infected with 3.9% and 5.8% of Babesia spp. and Anaplasma respectively with no case of Theileria. On the other hand the while Sokoto Gudali had 3.3% and 4.6% of Babesia spp. and Anaplasma spp. with no case of Theileria.

Values in the same column with different superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05)
Table 2: Prevalence of ticks in cattle according to Sexes in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State Nigeria

Values in the same column with different superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05)
Table 3: Prevalence of ticks in cattle according to the age of cattle in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State Nigeria

Values in the same column with different superscript differ significantly (P<0.05)
Table 5: Distributions of tick’s genus according to season in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria (N= 2009)

Values in the same column with different superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05)
Table 6: Distribution of tick species across sexes of cattle in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria

Values in the same column with different superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05)
Table 7: Prevalence of blood parasites in cattle examined in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria

Table 8: Prevalence of haemoparasites in ticks examined in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria

From this study it is concluded that cattle in Zaria and environs are infected by six genera of ticks namely; Amblyomma, Rhipicephalus, Boophilus, Hyalomma, Dermacentor and Ornithodorus and species, Amblyomma variegatum, Boophilus decaloratus, Hyalommatruncatum, Rhipicephalus sanguineus. Dermacentor andersoni, Rhipicephalus evertsi evertsi and Ornithodorus moubata. Male, adult and Bunaji breeds were more susceptible to ticks infestation than the females, young and calves, Red Bororo, Bokoloji and SokotoGudali breeds. Inadequate and constant tick control coupled with the extensive nature of grazing were largely responsible for the occurrence of ticks in the study areas.

Strategic tick control using suitable acaricides should be adopted to prevent spread of diseases and improve cattle production in this region. Adequate and extensive education and enlightenment of cattle breeders on the effects and consequences of tick infestation on the animals. Extensive system of management should be discouraged as movement from one point to another predisposes the cattle to different species of ticks. Cattle population density should be regulated to avoid spread of ticks from one animal to another. Grazing on thick forest should also be avoided to limit or to avoid contact with different species if ticks. Further studies on identification of ticks to species levelusing serology and a molecular technique is recommended. More studies on the distribution pattern of tick species and necessary factors responsible for their distribution should be encouraged and also understanding of the problems associated with the use of control strategies.

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