Cattle tick, also called Texas fever tick, carries Texas fever, a disease of cattle. The tick is round and chestnut-brown in color. It carries a one-celled organism that causes the disease. The tick injects the one-celled organisms into the cow with its saliva when feeding on the cow’s body fluids.
Texas fever is an infectious disease. The one-celled organisms multiply in the cattle’s blood and destroy the red blood corpuscles. The disease became serious in the southwestern part of the United States in about the mid-1800’s. It once threatened all the cattle in the country, but has been brought under control. Today, control measures restrict this tick to extreme southern Texas. But the tick is still common in Mexico.
