Tack Box Talk
Tack Box Talk
Blister Beetles: It's Not Just Alfalfa: The Story of One More Thing in 2020
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Dr. Justin Talley, livestock entomologist with Oklahoma State University discusses some of the recent blister beetle invasions into barns in Oklahoma. Don't worry, it's not just a Oklahoma concern. What horse owners should be on the look out for, and how to eliminate these deadly insects. Oh, and Don't Stop Believin'.
For more information on blister beetles:
Oklahoma State University: Blister Beetles in Alfalfa
Arizona
This is Tack box Talk and this is Horse Stories with the Purpose. Who are we? We are Equine educators. We are owners. We are judges. We are competitors. We are coaches. We are volunteers. We are moms. We are horse owners just like you. And we want to share our horse stories with a purpose. Welcome to Extension Horses Podcast Series, Tack Box Talk, Horse Stories with a Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney from Oklahoma State University and on today's episode, is actually Dr. Justin Talley, who's also from OSU. So welcome, Justin.
SpeakerHi, how are you?
Speaker 3So Justin is actually a livestock entomologist. So first of all, what the heck is a livestock entomologist?
SpeakerI deal with everything that bugs you. So all the bugs that are that can you get into livestock, I usually try to work on either on research projects or extension projects.
Speaker 3And so horses get to fall into that category too, right?
SpeakerYep, absolutely.
Speaker 3And you've even done a little bit of horse research or horse pest research, I guess that is.
SpeakerYeah, we've uh looked at some new products for horses and looked at how uh different flies can impact horses' behavior as well.
Speaker 3Well, that might be an episode for another day. Yeah. So the reason um that I invited you on today um was actually to talk about blister beetles. So my background um being a horse person, we've always advised people to worry about alfalfa because that's primarily where blister beetles are found, but it's also pretty regional. So if maybe Justin, if you want to even jump in, like why is it alfalfa and why is it regional?
SpeakerUh well, blister beetles are very interesting because uh they're they're mainly a plant-feeding beetle, uh, which means they really like to feed on plants when uh there's uh flowers or blooms. And so that's why they really like alfalfa. In general, if you want to think of a line across the United States, anywhere from Texas all the way north to the Dakotas and back to the East Coast, you have a high likelihood of getting blister beetles in in and around your operation or in alfalfa hay itself.
Speaker 3All right, so I'm picturing a map of the United States. If I draw a line from Texas, which is the bottom, to the Dakotas, that's the top. So you're saying everywhere?
SpeakerUh pretty much everywhere. We don't see a lot of blister beetles in the Rocky Mountains or in on the Pacific coast. But uh yeah, pretty much uh for the majority of horses in the U.S., you can find blister beetles.
Speaker 3So why did we never worry about it much when I lived in Wisconsin? I mean, we grew a lot of alfalfa, it was a dairy state, and we blissfully fed alfalfa to our horses.
SpeakerUh yeah, so you you up in the northern parts, you actually can have problems. And in fact, just this past winter from uh stored uh hay, there was a horse operation that lost several horses, and it was in the dead of winter. And so um, no matter how far north you are, it's just a matter of how many flowering plants you have, and if you have alpha alpha builds that they can feed on.
Speaker 3Gotcha. So my uh northern colleagues are not going to be excited to hear this.
SpeakerNope.
Speaker 3So the flowers are what actually attract um the beetles then. Do they eat the flowers or is it like the stage of maturity of the plant?
SpeakerUh it well, it depends on the blister beetle, but for the majority of blister beetles that we have, uh they'll feed on uh the blooms and the flowers. Uh and and to a certain degree, that does uh kind of give you an indication of of the maturity of the plant. So they occasionally they'll feed on other parts of the plant, but they certainly will be attracted to those plants when they are so if it's harvested sort of at the right time, maybe that's why we sometimes don't have problems. Well, that's a great point. That's one of the biggest things that we try to advocate is if you're getting alfalfa hay, is either get a first cutting or one of the last cuttings because you're out of that bloom period. And so if you get alfalfa during those two periods, you're usually gonna have a lower likelihood of having blister.
Speaker 3That's pretty good advice. So I wanted to um talk about because this has come up here in Oklahoma recently, and we're not as big of an alfalfa state. I mean, people grow alfalfa here, but just not, you know, when I think of the dairy land, it's all alfalfa. Um, but we've been getting some people saying they've got blister beetles like everywhere. So they're like crawling into the barn and like in their stall. So and it's not associated with the alfalfa in that point in time. Is this just another symptom of 2020? Like this is the worst year ever.
SpeakerYeah, yeah. So instead of murder hornets, you have blistering beetles that can get you everywhere.
Speaker 3So um there's nothing good about 2020.
SpeakerYeah. No, so um, you know, unfortunately in the in the south, especially in Oklahoma, um, anytime you have some hot weather, blister beetles will try to move in in indoors sometimes, and especially into horse barns that have a lot of things that blister beetles really like, including uh flowering plants or uh broadleaf weeds around the barn.
Speaker 3So I'm gonna back up. So flowering plants, do you mean like because we're horse people, we like things pretty? So like the geraniums and petunias, like that kind of thing?
SpeakerWell, not necessarily to all to the to the decorative plants, but they any kind of thing that can have that's very colorful or has a bloom could attract a blister beetle.
Speaker 3So the more we work to make our property pretty, we're attracting the beetles.
SpeakerYou make it pretty to the beetles too, so there you go.
Speaker 3Okay, so you also so we've got the flowers, and then you said the broadleaf weeds as well. Like what kind of those are we talking about?
SpeakerUh it can be anything from like uh what we call pigweed, uh kosher weed sometimes, but anything with uh broadleaf, it's uh that is certainly that can have a flower, flower on it. So a lot of times here in the south, we'll get a lot of pigweed in and around uh barns because uh we'll get pigweed seeds in hay sometimes, and so it'll start growing around our operations.
Speaker 3So is that why uh having somebody with a weed eater is pretty important?
SpeakerAbsolutely. You want to go chop them, hack them and chop them. So if you got somebody that that uh you either want to punish for a while, or somebody that you just want to pay uh some salary to get those weeds down, chop those weeds down.
Speaker 3Or is this an opportunity for exercise?
SpeakerAbsolutely. It's there in this time. I think I certainly need the to go out and weed eat. I've gained more weight now than any other guys.
Speaker 3Well, I could invite you over, but we actually do a pretty good job here. So the the beetles then might just be attracted to what's growing around the barn. And so when they go into the barn, are they just trying to get out of the heat? Like, what are they doing in there?
SpeakerSo it and again, it depends on the bit blister beetle species, but sometimes uh they're just getting into where it's a little bit cooler, and sometimes it's just an accident that they're inside the barn because we'll get these large swarms of blister beetles because it's part of their mating behavior. So not only is the the the weeds attracting the the beetles to feed on, but it's also a site where they'll start the males and females will start mating.
Speaker 3So we're interrupting like a big beetle orgy.
SpeakerUh yeah, yep. And so we have a lot of swarms in and around uh, especially in Oklahoma, we have uh uh swarming blister beetles that will just uh get all over those plants, and then uh what will happen is as it gets hotter throughout the day, they will try to seek some uh cooler uh areas, including barns and shaded areas.
Speaker 3Okay, this is painting a fantastic picture. So so if somebody finds, well, maybe let's go back a little bit. How do you know if you have them? I mean, there's there's a lot of bugs in Oklahoma, not gonna lie. So, how do you know if it's a blister beetle? I assume you don't crunch it up and see if it hurts.
SpeakerUh no, so uh blister beetles, especially those that can impact horses, are are gonna be kind of long and narrow in body and anywhere from about three-quarters to an inch and a half in length. One of the telltale signs is that their antennae are actually about anywhere from half to three-quarters the length of their body. Um, and sometimes they'll have them kind of flayed out in front of their head, but sometimes they'll curl back behind their body sometimes. But um that we have many different colors of blister beetles. We have uh striped blister beetles, we have some blister beetles that can have spots. Uh so we don't usually just name them by color, but um it ranges from anywhere from black to gray to intermingling of striped green and yellow.
Speaker 3Okay, so what should someone do if they see these guys?
SpeakerSo if they see them, they certainly need to be concerned about uh where they find them. So one of the biggest things if you find them in or on hay that is stored in the barn, you certainly need to be concerned and probably get rid of that hay, uh, especially if it's alfalfa hay. Uh we can get high concentrations uh of dead beetles or beetle parts in alfalfa hay. The other thing is if we have a lot of swarming blister beetles uh in and around the operation, they keep and they just happen to come inside, then there's some different things that you can do to get rid of them. You don't have to necessarily don't have to get rid of all your hay unless you suspect that that's where they're coming from.
Speaker 3Okay, so we can like spray for them essentially.
SpeakerYou're absolutely correct. We can spray, you can spray your barn. You actually have more options when you're spraying the facilities or barn itself, uh, just as long as you don't spray the animals inside the barn. Uh, we call these premise sprays. If you want, and again, they're premise sprays because uh they are not intended to be applied on an animal or anywhere near the animal, including uh the feed that the animal's gonna be that that the animal will be given.
Speaker 3Okay, so if you see the beetle on the alfalfa, you do not spray the alfalfa with that. That'd be a bad idea.
SpeakerYeah, uh that's a really bad idea because uh you certainly don't want a horse to ingest any kind of insecticide.
Speaker 3Okay, so we probably should be really clear here, too, that a premise spray is not ever like a fly spray. It's nothing that we'd be spraying on the animal, anything that the animal would eat. So these are very separate products.
SpeakerYeah, absolutely. These are these are completely different categories and in completely different ways that these products are tested. So again, when we talk about a premise spray, you need to have in the in the front of your mind to apply it nowhere near an animal. Um, and so you gotta keep that, and you really gotta read those label and uh directions. If you've got if you read those label directions very uh clearly, then you you'll notice it says do not apply on the animal.
Speaker 3Ah, so reading directions. Yes.
SpeakerYeah, that's a new concept. I know.
Speaker 3So that means we need to get the horses out of the barn um and keep them out of there. And I assume all the labels will sort of say how long before an animal can be around there.
SpeakerWell, so most of the products will have a say uh a re-entry uh interval, uh, but not all the products will, because some of our these products they they've been around for a long time. Some of these are simple permethrin type sprays that you uh spray in a lot of different areas. But when you look for a premise spray uh and it doesn't and it doesn't have horses on the label, but it could have beetles, then just know you can't apply it to the animal. It has to have horses actually in the label to say in how much you can apply on that animal if it's if it's uh an on-animal product.
unknownOkay.
Speaker 3But again, the beetles are not going to land on your horse. That would be a pretty random event.
SpeakerYou're absolutely correct. The beetles are not attracted to the horse in any way, they just cause a lot of problems for the horse.
Speaker 3Yeah. So, and we want to be clear, uh, so you'd think like living beetles will get out of the way, but the dead beetle, he's still toxic, all his little beetle parts. And so if the horse just accidentally eats it while they're grazing around or eating some grain, bingo bango, bad things happen.
SpeakerUh, absolutely. So, you know, there's a the compound within a beetle that causes issues for horses is known as cintheridin. And cantheridin, it can be in varying concentrations between blister beetle species, but as few as 0.5 uh milligrams to 1.0 milligrams can cause problems to a horse.
Speaker 3And so horses are pretty susceptible to this. Again, that's why I've always known about them, and we've made those recommendations with uh horses and alfalfa. But is it just because horses are susceptible to everything and want to cost us more money? Why do we not care another livestock?
SpeakerUm, so it here's the the um one thing is it can be toxic to other animals, it can be toxic to dairy, it can be toxic to cattle, but it's certainly toxic to horses. So a little bit of what you're saying is true. Horses are just sensitive to everything. We've got horses can have skin slough off when they have flies feed on them sometimes. So uh it's it's it's amazing. So um, in general, uh horses are probably our most susceptible animal species to uh kintherin.
unknownOkay.
Speaker 3So I suppose I should probably provide some of this information, but I'm gonna just let you do it anyhow. So, what should we looking for in a horse if we think they have it? What kind of signs are they gonna give us?
SpeakerUh, you know, in general, some horses will just give you just some general colic signs um whether they're depressed, uh, they're not eating as much. Well, one of the telltale signs is that they'll actually dip their muzzle into some water because the the the kintheridin within the beetles can actually blister some their their gums and their lips sometimes. But and so to ease that that burning sensation, sometimes horses will dip their nose, their whole muzzle into a water trough. And it's not usually in a playful manner that that a lot of horses would do this. They they you could visibly see that they're agitated. Um, another thing is is um they're they're just they are just not looking like a hundred percent. And so, which can be a I understand that could be a million things for a horse. But uh really if you if you have blister beetles around or if you notice some blister beetles and you see that horse is just not a hundred percent, then you probably need to make sure you it gets checked out by a veterinarian.
Speaker 3Yeah, so that's one of the things I always advocate. Like every time you look at that horse, just knowing what that picture of their normal behavior is so that you can pick up really quickly when something is going wrong. Um, and completely advocate you need to be able to take heart rates, do your respiration rates, you can call that vet and say, this is what I'm seeing. Um yeah, so I you know it's just that basic practice. If I see a horse near the water trough for a while, I'm gonna stop and see what the heck is he doing? Did he just get a drink and leave, or is he doing something funky? If he's doing something funky, it's my job to go see what the heck is going on.
SpeakerYeah, absolutely. So any abnormal behavior in that horse, uh certainly get it checked out.
Speaker 3So all the so we talked about them um coming into the barn. Um, and in my world, it's my pretty geraniums and all of a sudden. But for pastures as well, like we don't always think about um flowers and different weeds as far as a pest issue, but I but I guess the more we control what's in our pastures, then the less likelihood we have of beetles.
SpeakerYep. So think of it this way: think of it if you've got a nice pasture, that you've got good forage that a horse is eating on, but then you have these islands out there that are like weed that are these big broadleaf weeds. So those islands are highly visible to a blister beetle. And then once they get to that that location, they'll they'll send out uh pheromones and signals to say, hey, come here, we've got a great weed that we can use uh for either a food resource or a mating resource.
Speaker 3So uh now I'm gonna be like the the newbie person here. So I I have horses at my my place, and we're not doing anything commercial, we're not trying to uh raise cattle or anything like that. So on our native fields, we we actually we don't spray. So here's my full confession. Um, the positive side of that is we get a lot of the really cool Oklahoma wildflowers. So do we need to just destroy all of those? Is there a way we can have a happy medium in our pastures?
SpeakerYeah, so I think any kind of native uh flowering plant is not gonna be any major issue in attracting more blister beetles. It's those broadleaf weeds. So anytime that you see something that you, if you're gonna bail it up for hay, you're like, ooh, I don't want to go through there and swath that part of the pasture because it's weedy. That's probably gonna be the area that you need to think about blister beetles as well. So if you got a good hay pasture with no weeds, you usually don't have any blister beetles. But if you have some weeds in there, you're gonna have uh some blister beetles. Again, this exception to this is alfalfa, they're highly attracted to alfalfa because it's a blooming plant. And uh, but other than that, um uh native wildflowers shouldn't be a problem.
Speaker 3Perfect. So we do love our wildflowers here.
SpeakerYeah, yeah.
Speaker 3Okay, now now one other question. Uh, walk me through the grasshopper part of this.
SpeakerSo um blister beetles actually have a beneficial function because they'll actually feed on grasshopper eggs. And um, and so why sometimes we see blister beetles coming out when it's uh more hot and dry is because you've got a lot of blister beetles or a lot of grasshoppers uh that are laying their eggs and surviving. And so the blister beetles are out there foraging around, and so they're they're gonna feed on these. And why I say that's beneficial is because a grasshopper can actually eat more than a cow sometimes when we consider how much uh what kind of grasshoppers are these, Justin? These are Oklahoma grasshoppers. We'll call them lubers sometimes. The uh uh the um the issue is is that um so there is a beneficial function to a lot of blister beetles. Uh but in general, blister beetles are always around.
Speaker 3It's just when we get them in high concentrations that we're so have you had any of your own experiences with blister beetles?
SpeakerSo a personal story about blister beetles. And when we used to have horses in West Texas, we you know we don't have a lot of plants because it's too dry out there, but we can certainly get weeds. And one time we had a weed outside our horse barn that was covered in blister beetles that I mean they were just falling off this wheat. It was it it looked like a fountain of blister beetles just coming off of this wheat. So that was my personal story. Um, we can certainly get a lot of these uh in and around the Oklahoma, that's for sure.
Speaker 3So you didn't have any horses that died or any issues, you just saw them at your house?
SpeakerYeah, I just saw them because again, they weren't in our hay, they were just on the weeds by our horse bar. We you know, we knocked them down and got rid of that. Well, we finally got wit rid of the weed that we probably should have got rid of two months ago, but uh got rid of it, no, no horse problems, and everybody was all well and good.
Speaker 3So you didn't go out there with the flamethrower and just that would have been cool.
SpeakerYou'd see flaming beetles flying away, you think you're on a journey album or something like that.
Speaker 1I don't think I've seen that album.
SpeakerWell, every every journey album has a beetle on it.
Speaker 1It does, yeah.
SpeakerLook up uh journey and look up their like uh their their their album art and uh it has a beetle on it.
Speaker 1Really? Did they just like beatles?
SpeakerI don't know.
Speaker 1Were they like emulating the Beatles?
SpeakerUh no, I don't think so. I think they always had some, and again, these are not blister beetles on their label, but they had like uh a Beetle on on their album covers all the time.
Speaker 3So do you know how many people are now going to be Googling that?
SpeakerYeah, there you go. You need to uh uh play Journey in the background as you as we uh play this.
Speaker 3We might have to. I can do that. I can lay a soundtrack in. That's really cool. Well, um, any last kind of words for advice for people? Um, is this panic? Should they really like we need to address this right now? I mean, words of wisdom.
SpeakerSo, you know, the most important thing is is one, don't overreact. We don't need to spray everything. Uh, but you you need to be concerned if you have a lot of beetles around uh your your horse barn or horse operation. And what we really have found out is if you get rid of the weeds, uh you're getting rid of uh probably 95% of the problem. Uh and so if you have a weedy area around your your your barn, uh try to take care of that. And then uh if you find some blitz blister beetles inside the barn, you need to treat it. But be careful when you treat it. Don't don't overdo it.
Speaker 3Okay. So great words of advice. And this again just might be another hallmark of of the hits that keep on coming in 2020.
SpeakerThere you go. You got blaming beetles.
Speaker 3Fantastic. Well, uh, Dr. Taley, really appreciate your time today. And this has been another Tag Box Talk for Stories with a Purpose.