Danger To Livestock
The horn fly, as can be gleaned from its taxonomic designation Haematobia irritans, is an irritant to livestock. Beyond this, incessant biting is compounded by loss of blood, and results in such detrimental effects on host physiology as to include reduction in milk production, efficiency, and rate of gain. If the host is infested with a large number of flies, the resulting skin irritation and wounds may result in the drawing of a secondary infestation of myasis producing flies. There is some controversy over whether the horn fly is a disease vector, with at least one source asserting that the flies can be an intermediate host of Stephanofilaria stilesi, a parasite of cattle in North America.
Read more about this topic: Haematobia Irritans
Famous quotes containing the word danger:
“We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems something of degrading dependence in living it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)