Producer Preparedness Critical as New World Screwworms Approach

Mar 23, 2026

By Kay Ledbetter

Livestock producers need to take steps now to prepare as the New World screwworm approaches the Texas-Mexico border, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service livestock specialists.

Necessary action now breaks down to three areas: plan, prepare and monitor the situation and livestock, said AgriLife Extension livestock specialists Ron Gill, Ph.D., professor, Chico, and Karl Harborth, Ph.D., assistant professor, Corpus Christi, both in the Department of Animal Science.

With the latest report of New World screwworm in Mexico, only 149 miles from the Texas border, Harborth said the threat is more imminent to South Texas producers. While some progressive ranchers have already made changes in their operations, he said many producers still need to develop plans for the pest’s arrival.

“I don’t think a lot of us thought it would be an issue in our lifetime,” Harborth said. “There are still people who don’t know what screwworm is and the possibilities it brings.”

Best treatment is management and preparation

Gill and Harborth said producers’ questions at New World screwworm-related meetings have been focused on treatment.

There is no magic cure or foolproof treatment, so preparation and management should be No. 1 on the list, they said.

Source : tamu.edu

Video: We Let Dad Drive a 50,000 Pound Dump Truck

There's old hog barns under that field now. The old hog barn site on the farm has been sitting there for decades, and this is the week it finally came out: concrete pad, burn pile, charred lumber, all of it loaded into a CAT 725C rock truck and buried in a pit we dug back in the timber.

Tork's been waiting his whole life to drive one of these, so he gets the keys to a 50,000 pound rock truck and I ride shotgun. The excavator loads, the dozer clears the timber, the drone shows the whole site from above, and by sundown there's nothing left of the old place but a smooth patch of dirt. It's a weird feeling erasing something that was here before either of us, but the farm has to keep moving.