Their bites can cause significant health problems due to hypersensitivities and transmission of protozoan and bacterial diseases. Exposure to biting and nuisance flies disrupts normal cattle grazing behaviours and reduces feed intake through restless behaviour.
My answer is insects ensure the world’s food. Around one third of all food is caused by insect pollination. Fruit plants, low-growing fruits and vegetables are unimaginable without insects. Without insects, even a cheeseburger would only be a bun, because cattle prefer to feed on forage plants pollinated by insects.
Lice and mites permanently reside on cattle, numbers tending to increase during the housing period due to frequent close contact between cattle and thicker coats offering protection. Infestations cause itching and hair loss, with self-inflicted trauma encouraging secondary bacterial infection. Ticks are only present on cattle.
Why don’t people eat insects as much as livestock?
I suspect one reason people don’t mind eating insects as much as livestock is that people picture a single insect and think, “Meh, that little thing isn’t very important. So I’m ok with eating insects.” But they forget to add up all the insects that go into their food, which collectively look more like a big animal than a tiny one.
One more question we ran across in our research was “What is the role of insects in the food web?”.
Along with plants, insects are at the foundation of the food web, and most of the plants and animals we eat rely on insects for pollination or food. For example, 96% of songbirds feed insects to their young.
What would happen to animals if they stopped eating insects?
There are many animals whose diets mostly consist of insects. Such animals include anteaters, armadillos, geckos, bats, and shrews. If insects vanished from these animals’ diets, many would not survive, but some may turn to alternative sources of food such as fruits or plants.
Why do some people think cattle are stupid?
The people that think cattle are stupid just don’t understand cattle and are therefore cattle illiterate. So if you say a bovine is stupid then you are not savvy at handling livestock…PERIOD!
Another common question is “Why did the cow hit me with her horns?”.
Our answer is the cow may have ‘hit you’ because she was getting bitten by insects and like most horned animals, has no comprehension of hitting other people with her horns when trying to get the insects off her. You said she started ‘shaking her head.’ So maybe it was insects.