So your Dung beetle colony is doing well, but there are still a number of threats that they have to deal with in establishing and becoming really abundant. To manage healthy Dung beetle populations, you need to familiarize yourself with the threats and if possible, develop a strategy to manage them. Well, there are a whole lot of living threats to the way in which Dung beetles might prosper. Included amongst these are predators, you know, birds such as ibis and crows and coca-barrows. They all love Dung beetles and then you can have other vertebrate predators like foxes. Monitoring your Dung beetles will assist in your understanding of your colony populations and whether or not you need to acquire more beetles. Is it too wet or too dry or too hot or too cold or are the soils no good at all? Yet if you have considered these issues when introducing your beetles and have introduced the right species at the right time into the right soils, you're certainly one step ahead. Enabling you to focus on other pressures placed upon your colony such as chemicals. Veterinary and agricultural chemicals pose a manageable threat to your Dung beetle populations. Many of the popular chemicals that are used to control livestock parasites also make the Dung toxic to beetles. There are a lot of popular chemicals that are used for control of intestinal parasites in livestock. Many of these make the Dung toxic to Dung beetle adults and the larvae. However, there are also Dung beetle friendly chemicals. Before you apply chemicals to your herd, it's important to find out what type of parasites you are trying to control. Chapter 10 in Dung Down Under has a table detailing the chemicals for parasite control and the threat levels of these chemicals on Dung beetles during their life cycle. Choose a chemical with the least likely impact on Dung beetles and avoid applying any chemicals during the breeding season of the Dung beetles. If you do need to use chemicals which are harmful to the Dung beetles, do this at the time when low Dung beetles are active. Remembering that your colony may be made up of winter active and summer active beetles reduce the frequency of treatment. When the parasites be managed with applications at key times of the year and at times that don't affect Dung beetles, ask yourself, is the treatment really necessary? That's the whole herd need to be treated. Our parasites specific to individuals or certain groups. Treating only the animals that need treatment or reduce the production of toxic Dung and gives beetles more of an opportunity to feed on uncontaminated Dung. Also, it pays to research the application rates of the chemical so that it's safe for Dung beetles. Agricultural chemicals such as pesticides can also pose a threat to Dung beetles. We did some experiments looking at the application of glyphosate to weedy pastures and then added Dung beetles to these pastures. The glyphosate had no effect upon the Dung beetles at all. Then we went and washed them in glyphosate and we found that that still had no effect upon them. Some studies with organophosphates to test their toxicity to Dung beetles and we found that very quickly when you get 100% mortality with some of the chemicals that are used for control of red-legged earthmine and loosens flea. If you use these chemicals, you delay introducing cattle to those paddocks for some time. You may wish to pursue other options for weed or insect control, options that don't involve chemicals. Follow these steps and you'll be able to ensure on your property a healthy and growing Dung beetle population. And if you'd like to find out more, please contact your local Natural Resources Centre.