Vol. 9, Issue 5, Part F (2024)

This research was carried out to study the effect of H.exigua fly annoyance on cattle behaviour and milk production. Two cattle farms having high and moderate infestation with H.exigua were treated with flumethrin pour on. A highly significant reduction in the frequency of fly avoidance behaviour was observed in both infested groups (p<0.001) after treatment.

The pre-treatment frequency of head toss, leg stamps, tail flicks, ear flicks and skin twitches viz., 3.37±0.24, 3.47±0.37, 28.42 ±1.79, 15.84 ±1.10 and 21.68±1.32 respectively was observed in cattle having high fly infestation.

The post treatment observation on frequency of fly avoidance activities viz., head toss, leg stamp, tail flick, ear flick and skin twitches had significantly (p<0.001) reduced to 0.42±0.14, 0.42±0.16, 04.11±0.56, 0.95±0.21 and 1.32±0.32 respectively among animals with high fly infestation. Similar trend was also observed in cattle with moderate fly infestation.

A significant (p<0.05) increase in milk yield was recorded from 3^rd day of post treatment and a highly significant increase (p<0.001) in milk yield was noticed from 4^th to 7^th day post treatment in both high and moderately infested animal group. It was estimated that an average loss of 374 and 288 ml milk yield / day / animal that had high and medium fly intensity, respectively.