Abstract

Parasitism is one of the main problems that affect livestock. Commercial acaricides have been used in order to control tick, but these chemicals have been responsible for the development of drug resistance and residues in the environment. Changes in the concept of production determined the search for natural measures, which guarantees animal sanity along with safety of the produced food. This essay had as an objective, to evaluate the citronella oil and neem oil in the control of bovine ticks. Through the technique of adult ticks immersion, 280 ticks were evaluated. They were distributed to equal number throughout four treatments: negative control group, positive control (ivermectin), neem oil and citronella oil. The mortality index, estimated reproduction, product efficiency, eggs production index and hatchability rate were analyzed. The efficiency of the product was verified by the mortality index just for the positive control group (100%) and citronella oil (97.14%). The citronella oil inhibited the eclosion of eggs in 100% as well. The other treatments did not present the minimum eclosion inhibition level of 95%. This way, according to the present essay, it was concluded that the citronella oil was efficient against Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, but this result was not observed in relation to the neem oil.

Key words: Agroecology, Citronella, neem, organic production, phytoterapy, ticks.