Wildlife Science
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Browsing Wildlife Science by Author "Game Dept., Kenya, Formerly Veterinary Research Institute, Kenya"
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Item The Red-Billed Oxpecker and its Relation to Stock in Kenya(1951) van Someren, V.D. ; Game Dept., Kenya, Formerly Veterinary Research Institute, KenyaOxpeeker (Baphagus erythrorhyttchus erythrorhyrtehus (Stanley)) and the larger herbivorous animals in East, Central and South Africa has been known for many years. Their habit of perching and feeding upon game animals such as rhinoceros and buffalo, and giving warning to the beasts when danger approaches by their hissing alarm call, has earned for them a bad reputation among professional hunters. With the introduction and gradual extension of cattle farming among both Europeans and Africans in these countries, these birds have found cattle a very suitable host upon which to feed: and their predilection for opening up and attacking sores and abrasions on stock animals has also earned for them among stockowners a worse reputation. Jackson (1938) records them as being a great curse to pack donkeys and mules with sore backs in the early days, since many animals on safari died entirely through the attentions of these birds. Although this habit of feeding upon open sores had been known for many years, it was not until 1933 that a scientific study of their food and feeding habits was made by RE Moreau (1933), who tried also to assess their status as pests or not. Moreau examined the stomach contents of 58 Red-billed Oxpeckers, and summarized the field evidence on their food and feeding habits, mainly in Tanganyika. He found that ticks and other blood-sucking parasites formed an important and probably major part of the birds' diet. A total of 2,291 ticks of all sizes and stages of development were found in 55 of the birds examined, the average being just over 41 ticks to each bird. 95 per cent of these ticks were found to be potential vectors of tick-borne diseases in East Africa, such as east coast fever and heartwater. Diptera, probably all blood-sucking species, were eaten by 44 of the birds, two stomachs containing Diptera exclusively. Other organisms, among which lice were the most numerous, formed an insignificant portion of the food, while animal hair occurred in the majority of stomachs, but in varying quantities. Most of the blood clots found in the stomachs were found to be derived from engorged ticks which had been swallowed whole. It was suggested that these clots had not been ingested directly by the bird from open sores, and only one instance was recorded of an Oxpecker obtaining food in any other way than from a living animal—this being a record of a bird feeding upon some impala meat hung out to dry. Moreau found little satisfactory field evidence that the Oxpecker itself starts an excavation in the hide of an animal for the purpose of feeding, but that the birds undoubtedly avail themselves of any opportunities presented by existing sores or abrasions caused otherwise. On balance he concluded that when stock animals can be looked after and abrasions protected, the birds are not a nuisance, but may do more good than harm. Recently, however, with the extension of dipping practices to kill cattle ticks in most of the European stock areas in Kenya, it has been suggested that the birds were causing more damage to stock than formerly because their natural food of ticks was becoming scarcer; and that they were turning more and more to making deliberate incisions in order to feed on flesh or blood. It was considered therefore that control measures should be greatly enforced.
