“We almost need to learn how to infect them rather than how not to infect them.”
It’s a statement that seems to contradict everything veterinarians are taught about infectious disease.
Yet when managing tick-borne disease in endemic regions, it’s a reality that captures one of the most difficult balancing acts. Avoiding ticks altogether may leave cattle without protective immunity later in life. Too much exposure, however, can result in clinical disease. Somewhere between those extremes lies the best outcome, but exactly where that balance exists remains uncertain.
A new study published in npj Veterinary Sciences offers a glimpse into how veterinarians and dairy producers navigate that uncertainty. Rather than evaluating a treatment or testing a new management strategy, researchers from the University of Liverpool brought together veterinarians and producers from tick-endemic farms in southwest England to explore how they make decisions when science doesn’t provide all the answers.
Their conversations reveal that managing tick-borne disease isn’t simply about controlling parasites. It’s about weighing competing risks, adapting to changing conditions and making difficult decisions despite incomplete information.
There Are Still More Questions Than Answers
The discussions made one thing clear: Despite decades of experience with tick-borne disease, important questions remain unanswered.
How long does naturally acquired immunity last? How much tick exposure is enough to build protection without causing disease? Which ticks are carrying pathogens, and where are they located within a pasture?
Those aren’t academic questions. They influence grazing decisions, parasite control strategies and conversations between veterinarians and producers every grazing season.
As one veterinarian explained, “The ideal for these guys [would be] if they knew exactly where infected ticks were on their farm ... you’d be a very clever person to be able to tell them that.”
Without that information, managing tick-borne disease becomes less about following a protocol and more about balancing probabilities.
Learning to Work With the Landscape
Unlike many infectious diseases, tick-borne disease can’t simply be fenced out.
Woodlots, hedgerows, rough pasture and wildlife create habitats where ticks thrive. Those features are often permanent parts of the landscape, meaning producers must adapt their management rather than eliminate the risk.
One farmer summarized that reality succinctly:
“You’re never going to change the woodland around you ... that’s always going to be there, so you’ve got to work with what is around you. You’ve got to change what you do because that environment’s never going to change.”
Participants described adjusting grazing rotations, exposing youngstock at specific times, changing pasture use and continually refining management based on previous experience. None of these strategies were presented as universal recommendations. Instead, they reflected years of learning how disease behaved on individual farms.
That variability also reinforces why one-size-fits-all advice can be difficult to apply. What works on one farm may not work on the next.
The Weight of Never Knowing
Perhaps the most surprising finding in the study wasn’t about ticks at all. It was about people.
Throughout the focus groups, veterinarians and producers described the emotional burden of managing a disease that rarely offers certainty. Unlike diseases with well-established prevention strategies, tick-borne disease often leaves producers wondering whether a different grazing decision, a different pasture or a different management choice could have changed the outcome.
As one producer recalled, “You start questioning yourself.”
That self-doubt surfaced repeatedly throughout the discussions. Producers described the anxiety that came with spring turnout and the knowledge that an outbreak could be waiting in a pasture that looked no different from any other. Veterinarians spoke about working with clients who had tried multiple management approaches but still found themselves facing disease year after year.
One veterinarian remembered producers reaching “rock bottom” and “thinking about giving up.” Another captured the feeling in just a few words:
“It’s so helpless.”
Those comments reveal a side of endemic disease that is rarely measured. Milk losses can be calculated. Treatment costs can be tracked. The emotional burden of repeatedly making high-stakes decisions without definitive answers is much harder to quantify.
Experience Becomes Another Tool
That uncertainty may also explain why local experience plays such a prominent role in tick-borne disease management.
Farmers know which pastures have historically produced cases. They recognize subtle changes in cattle behavior before clinical signs become obvious. Veterinarians contribute clinical expertise, diagnostics and an understanding of disease processes. Together, those different forms of knowledge help fill the gaps where evidence remains limited.
One veterinarian described the relationship this way:
“The farmer has the knowledge about their farm so we use that knowledge and work with them. Because they know the fields, they know what signs they normally have. They’re really good at spotting them early ... we kind of manage it with everyone’s knowledge put together.”
The study doesn’t suggest experience should replace evidence. Instead, it highlights how veterinarians and producers combine scientific knowledge with years of practical observation to make the best decisions possible under uncertain conditions.
Turning Experience Into Evidence
Better surveillance could help identify where infected ticks are located. A clearer understanding of naturally acquired immunity could improve grazing recommendations. More field-based research could help veterinarians advise producers on balancing disease prevention with the development of protective immunity. The authors argue that future work should better integrate veterinary science, ecology and social science to reflect the realities of pasture-based livestock production.
Perhaps the study’s greatest contribution is reminding us that uncertainty isn’t a failure of veterinary medicine. It’s a reflection of the complex biology of tick-borne disease.
Until those evidence gaps are filled, we continue doing what we’ve always done: combining science, experience, observation and collaboration to make the best possible decisions, even when certainty isn’t an option.
