Animal husbandry – Antivermin treating or cleaning – Sprayer
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-23
2001-05-15
Jordan, Charles T. (Department: 3644)
Animal husbandry
Antivermin treating or cleaning
Sprayer
C119S656000, C119S658000, C119S666000, C119S667000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06230660
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
Not Applicable.
FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Not Applicable.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention pertains generally to insect control apparatus. More particularly, the present invention pertains to a substantially fully automated insect control apparatus for providing insect pest management. The present invention is particularly, but not exclusively, useful for controlling problems in connection with flies among cows in a dairy herd.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Control and management of insects, including muscoid and nonmuscoid flies attracted to animals such as dairy cows, has proven challenging, costly, illusive, and frequently ineffective. Both muscoid and nonmuscoid flies, in a wide variety of species, cluster synanthropically to humans and their domestic animals, or in close proximity to humans and domesticated animals such as cows. Insects may have dramatic impact on the economics of animal production, which is a commercial industry constituting a significant contribution to the gross national product of the United States, where the dairy cattle industry has been estimated to produce $12 billion annually. The several different species of flies commonly found on livestock premises may cause a number of problems, including irritating cows so severely that milk production suffers; transmitting disease pathogens; increasing enteric (intestinal) diseases among humans associated with cow herds; violation of regulatory rules and regulations, and a host of similar problems.
A variety of devices, apparatus and methods have been proposed for controlling insects, including flies, among cattle, including dairy cows. None has proven effective in achieving the level of control demanded by industry operators. None of the devices, apparatus and methods proposed for controlling flies in and around a dairy herd provides substantially complete control of a fly population using a substantially automated insect control apparatus requiring minimal operator involvement during operation of the apparatus.
One proposal for controlling flies attracted to cattle, for example, is to bury fly parasites in soil beneath the surface of the soil on which cattle are penned. In addition, other insects, including nematodes, have been introduced into herd locations in hopes of fly control. Fly traps using bait attractants have been used. None of those techniques has proven effective in controlling fly populations attracted to cattle pens. For several reasons, parasites may achieve control of only a small portion of a fly population, and then only temporarily. Parasites reproduce more slowly than the rate at which flies reproduce. Parasite hatch rates are unreliable and unpredictable. A parasite population further may be reduced because parasites die or fly way. Parasite use as a method for attempting to control flies among cattle is labor intensive, therefore expensive, usually making the solution unacceptable to an operator of a cattle business. Virtually no fly control is achieved using nematodes. Nematodes are not suitable for use in acidic soils. Because of the large amounts of manure and urine produced by multiple pens of cattle, all soil used for cattle becomes acidic. In addition, use of nematodes is an impractical solution because nematodes must be applied or introduced into a herd at night, only after rain fall, and must be reintroduced frequently to achieve any measure of success in controlling insects on an animal and animal herd. Also, no marked reduction of a fly population occurs in connection with use of fly traps. Fly traps rely on bait, and no bait has proven effective, particularly for large tracts of land used to pen large cattle herds. Virtually no control has been achieved using scattered bait. “Scattered bait” generally is manufactured in the form of pellets comprised of sugar granules treated with poison and attractants. Studies show that flies develop a resistance or immunity to chemicals used in conventional bait.
Spraying or fogging chemicals on cattle has proven equally marginal in achieving control of flies for long periods of time. Spraying or fogging are very expensive procedures in view of using currently available apparatus and methods, particularly using effective chemicals, often because those apparatus and methods waste considerable amounts of costly chemicals during operation. Aerial spraying of insecticide on cattle has proven no more effective than use of fly parasites, nematodes, and fly traps using bait attractants. Other spraying techniques and apparatus include insecticide fogging of cattle by truck mounted sprayers, as well as larvicide spraying of manure. A variety of spray systems installed in wash pens have attempted to control flies among cattle, but none provides substantially complete control of a fly population using a substantially automated insect control apparatus that requires little operator involvement during operation the apparatus. Neither direct spraying nor aerial spraying of roosting flies at night, when flies tend to sleep, either by truck mounted or backpack sprayers, has produced other than marginal results. While providing a temporary reduction in a fly population, aerial spraying is extremely expensive, and must be repeated frequently to achieve any results. For the typical dairy herd operator, therefore, aerial spraying is not economically feasible. Further, appropriate chemicals cannot be used in connection with either aerial or truck mounted spraying devices because of unavoidable chemical contamination of feed and water. In addition, cattle often are frightened by airplane applications, resulting in cattle loss when cattle have been crushed against pen railings by other stampeding cows. Truck mounted fogging sprayers generally achieve only partial control of fly populations, and then only four a short period of time. Truck spraying also may constitute a health hazard to an operator of the sprayer unit. Further, when cattle pens are fogged, many flies avoid the effects of spraying by vacating the area being sprayed, but promptly return when fogging has ended.
Other forms of spraying apparatus propose use of more than one device for applying a spray to an animal, such as more than one nozzle, but use of multiple devices like multiple nozzles causes significant waste of chemicals, thus increasing significantly the cost of a spraying operation. Unique chemical compositions developed for animal herd application are very expensive. An oil based chemical mixture, therefore, is inherently expensive, yet an oil based chemical mixture has proven to be the only effective combination of ingredients to control flies among cattle, particularly in a dairy environment. In other currently available apparatus for spraying chemicals on an animal, the recommended positioning of any detector included in the apparatus causes the sprayers to become inoperative. When dairy cattle, for example, pass in the vicinity of sprayers, a detection device mounted anywhere other than generally above the head of a cow will become covered with significant quantities of manure, rendering the detection device inoperable. In addition, none of the existing sprayers provides for water encapsulation to encapsulate water with one or more ingredients to be applied to an animal, including one or more chemicals.
Other proposals for controlling insects among cattle include feeding cows oral larvicide and applying residual insecticides on the underside of shaders. No significant long-term reduction in the fly population has been observed using an oral larvicide, primarily because no chemical that might work effectively against flies may be fed orally to milking cattle. Even more primitive devices have been used, such as back rubbers, both manuals and automated. A manual back rubber applicator requires an operator to periodically remove, dip into a chemical, and reinstall a rubber device above the back of a cow that walks beneath the rubber device. No noticeable difference, however, in fly population has been observed using
Abbott Yvonne R.
Jordan Charles T.
Regan Ray R.
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