Ticks and tick-borne disease (TBD) are major challenges to cattle production in the tropics
and subtropics. Economic losses associated with ticks amount to billions of dollars annually.
Although efforts to eradicate ticks and TBD using chemical control strategies have been
implemented in many developing countries for decades, these acaricides are costly, and
cattle susceptibility to ticks remains unchanged. Traditional breeding methods, where the
farmer selected animals using records to improve the host genetic resistance to ticks …