Identification and Prevalence of Ticks in Small Ruminants in Enderta District, Tigray Regional State, Ethiopia

Ticks are harmful blood sucking external parasites of mammals, birds and reptiles and cause mechanical damage, irritation, inflammation, anemia and loss of production in animals. All visible adult ticks were collected carefully from seven half body regions of sheep and goats. Out of the total 384 small ruminants (78 sheep and 306 goats) examined, 160 (41.6%) were found infested with at least a single and/or different genera of ticks. The prevalence of tick infestation in goats and sheep was found to be 44.7% and 29.5%, respectively. The difference in ticks' prevalence was statistically significant (p< 0.05) among the age groups, body conditions and in between the Kebelles. However, there was no statistically significant variation (p> 0.05) between the sex groups. About 947 adult ticks (194 sheep and 753 goats) were collected and identified at the genera level. Three genera of ticks (i.e. Amblyoma (26.3%), Rhipicephalus (62.6%) and Boophilus (11.1%) were identified. Rhipicephalus was the most abundant tick, whereas Boophilus was the least encountered ticks. All genera of male ticks outnumbered females one except Boophilus. Most ticks infested body regions of the animals were tail/perineum (35.8%), neck (20.4%), leg (17.7%), udder/scrotum (9.4%), head (8.9%), belly (4.8%) and back region (3%). The high prevalence of tick infestation in the current study might be due to poor management of animals, population density of animals and agroclimatic conditions. Therefore, it needs good animal management, awareness creation of the animal breeders, continuous surveillance of ticks and further investigation on the distribution and seasonality of ticks.