Skin lesions and cattle hide damage from Haematobia irritans infestations

The horn fly Haematobia irritans L. (Diptera: Muscidae) has recently spread to Argentina and Uruguay and is believed to cause damage to cattle hides. Four groups of ten Holstein steers each were maintained for 58 weeks under different infestation levels with H. irritans to determine if it was the cause of this problem. Hides (chrome tanned) from steers maintained under minimum infestation level had 4.7 +/- 3.8% of the area damaged. Maintaining the steers under low H. irritans level for the last 44 days of the trial using insecticidal ear-tags, resulted in 29.5 +/- 15.8% of hide area being damaged. Steers that were treated with 5% cypermethrin pour-on, when the H. irritans population was close to 50 flies, showed that 31.3 +/- 16.6% of hide area was injured, and 46.6 +/- 12.8% of damaged hide area was found in hides from non-treated steers. Significant differences were found between mean hide damage from steers maintained continuously under low H. irritans infestation levels and all other groups. Hyperaemia was significantly lower in the skin of steers under low H. irritans infestation level than in the skins of non-treated steers and steers maintained under low-level infestations for the final 44 days. Eosinophil and mononuclear cell infiltration was significantly lower when the population of H. irritans was less than six per steer than when the population was more than 100 flies per steer. Low numbers of Stomoxys calcitrans were found in all groups, but most hide damage was presumed due to H. irritans.