page_title: Mites of livestock
section_title: Pesticide treatments
hierarchical_section_title: Mites of livestock / Control of infestations / Pesticide treatments
caption_attribution_description: English: A dip-bath in Lesotho for treating sheep against scab mite Psoroptes ovis and other ectoparasites.
context_page_description: Mites are small crawling animals related to ticks and spiders. Most mites are free-living and harmless. Other mites are parasitic, and those that infest livestock animals cause many diseases that are widespread, reduce production and profit for farmers, and are expensive to control.
  The invertebrate mites are arthropods with a chitinous exoskeleton and jointed limbs. Within the Arthropoda, they belong in the subclass Acari and species belonging to the Acari are informally known as acarines. Although both acarines and insects are studied in the fields of veterinary and medical parasitology, acarines are separated from insects by structure, feeding, lifecycles, and disease relations. Both livestock and companion animals are susceptible to mite infestation. Humans also may become infested by contagion from these domestic animals. Infestation by mites usually causes skin diseases known as mange, scabies, scab, demodecosis, or in general as acariasis. The causation, economic impact, and control of these diseases in livestock are described in this article. Mites that cause disease in honey bees are described in Varroa destructor.
context_section_description: Psoroptes mites infesting sheep are controlled by application of synthetic chemicals formulated for killing mites and ticks (acaricides, or more generally ectoparasiticides). These can be applied as aqueous washes in dipping baths, or as pour-on preparations in an oily formulation that spreads over the skin. Dip baths used to be commonly used for applying acaricides to sheep (also cattle). However, alternatives such as hand-held sprayers and pour-on applicators are now often used to reduce costs and risk of contamination associated with running a dip tank. Formamidine and synthetic pyrethroid acaricides such as amitraz and flumethrin, respectively, are often used.
  A more direct way of treating some types of mite are antiparasitic drugs that act systemically through the internal circulation of the animal rather than topically on the skin. The avermectin drugs such as ivermectin are used as acaricides against deeply feeding mites such as Sarcoptes and Demodex species. The drugs are delivered orally or parenterally. They can also be effective against surface-feeders such as Psoroptes species. Botanical pesticides derived directly from plants such as the neem tree (source of azadirachtin active ingredient) are an alternative to commercial chemical pesticides.
caption: Dipping sheep to control Psoroptes mites and other ectoparasites
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