FYI, Fatal Tick Bite in Dogs

[forgeblast]

Here in the North East, I get my dog the lyme vaccination every year. If I miss her advantix by two days she has ticks on her. There is the tick key and that tick twister, the tick key could not get a tick off my back but the twister did.

 

[Gary Fowler]

We use the drops on our dog, but the best solution is to get yourself a herd of guinea fowl. They go all day with their head down in the grass and eat any tick they find. I haven't found a tick on our dog since getting the guinea fowl. I have 6 that roam all over the yard. Wife hates the sound they make but it doesn't bother me. They are also good watch dogs and alert to any disturbance.

 

[flusher]

Ticks are really dangerous. My sister was bitten by one while cleaning out a storage shed a few years ago. She was diagnosed with Lyme disease and Erichilosis. Took her almost a year to recover.

 

[flusher]

Ticks are really dangerous. My sister was bitten by one while cleaning out a storage shed a few years ago. She was diagnosed with Lyme disease and Erichilosis. Took her almost a year to recover.

Oops. Correct spelling is "Ehrlichiosis".

 

[charlz]

I was just thinking.. if the dog gets ticks what about Oscar and don't you have horses as well? If nothing else they could act as a tick breeding ground if not treated... do you treat or spray them for ticks?

 

[newbury]

It's getting to be that time of year again. I've been diagnosed with Lyme disease 3 times over the last 10 years. Tick bite, inflammation, doctor tests for it. I don't like ticks.

We have lots of ticks in the North-East.We use Advantix every month,Lyme disease shots.Permathrin(spelling) is good for spraying trucks,cars ect.I have got into the habit of spraying with Permathrin any deer ect.that we take.

Tick prevention starts in the bathroom, if you use toilet paper with tubes.
Practical Primitive | Skill of the Month: Tick Tubes

Synopsis:
Save the tubes.
Save some dryer lint, or cotton balls, or something like that to stuff inside the tubes.
Spray the lint or whatever with Permethrin (check the link)
Stuff it loosely inside the tubes
Spread the tubes around in areas where you expect to find small rodents and they won't be bothered by your pets or people

Why and what:
The tick life cycle relies on small mammals.
Permethrin is highly toxic to ticks
The small mammals use the lint as bedding material.

For self defense where you cannot use tubes I use Permethrin spray. So before I go into the woods I spray my boots, pant cuffs above the boot, shirt sleeves, hat, etc.

I don't just indiscriminately spray lawns etc. because Permethrin is also toxic to bees and cats.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks, we are going to give that a try. We have all the ingredients, we just need to start a program to deal with the ticks!!!!


As for the horses and Oscar, we give them a wormer in their food, but haven't done anything for ticks. We need to fix this.

 

[95XL883]

Eddie,

Thanks for the heads up. I'd hate to lose our GSD. Raiden is beautiful. I hope he recovers quickly and fully.

Miscellaneous comments from reading this thread.

I wouldn't use pliers, tweezers or a not object to remove a tick. I've been told, and it makes sense to me, that it causes them to spit up into the bite increasing/worsening any infection.

I can usually get my fingernail underneath their body, pinching the hypostome (barbed mouth part anchoring the tick) and pulling it out. Failing a fingernail, a couple of credit cards, drivers license or similar other hard plastic works well for pinching the hypostome and removing the tick.

The tick twister looks interesting and should work. I plan to get several.

Permethrin is great stuff. I don't buy the pre-mixed stuff as it so expensive. Instead I go on-line and buy a 32 ounce bottle of 43%(?) concentrate for $25. Cut it to .5% solution and it will make many gallons of spray. (Mine came with instructions on mixing it to other strengths for other uses like termite control.) I hate ticks so bad that at the beginning of each season I heavily treat a set of clothes and boots with Permethrin. Once a week I treat them again with a light spray. If I'm going into a heavy chigger area, I'll also treat socks and the inside of boots. The weekly treating is probably overkill as a single treatment in supposed to last 5 weeks and isn't affected by washing. Buying the concentrate and cutting it makes it cheap to over-treat. I haven't had a tick attach to my wife, my boys or myself since doing the weekly treatments and we do venture into some pretty heavy tick infested areas.

For our GSD, we give her a monthly oral tick treatment. I also give her legs a light spray treatment just before we venture into the tick areas. (The vet said it would be okay as Permethrin is the active ingredient in Lice shampoo.) We only got her last July and so far she has been tick free (but we are only on the property once/maybe twice a week).

I also have heard that Guinea fowl are very good for tick control. Another effective control is field burning and our field is pretty tick free. But I don't want to risk damaging trees by burning the low brush in the woods so those areas have high tick populations. Diatomaceous earth is supposed to be deadly to any exo-skeleton insect/arachnid but I haven't tried it.

The permethrin in dryer lint is a great tip. I'll be trying it this year. The d**m pack rats are so bad that I'm sure they really contribute to the tick problem.

Again, good luck and best wishes to Raiden. And thanks again for the heads up.

 

[95XL883]

A tick story. A couple of years ago I was sitting on the ground turkey hunting. My clothing was all Permethrin treated so I wasn't worried about ticks. I watched a couple start crawling across my leg. Pretty soon I could tell they were staggering, walking/crawling erratically. As I'm watching this a grasshopper lands on my leg, picks up a tick and proceeds to eat it. It picked it up and held it taking bites. It handled it like you or I would eat a sandwich. When finished, it ate the second one. It was interesting watching the grasshopper take bites out the tick. Better them than me.

I hadn't treated my backpack. During that morning's hunt I saw probably ten ticks crawl across it. Only two on my clothing and they were obviously affected by the Permethrin. On the way home, I left the bag in the bed of the truck and then treated it when I got home. I hate ticks.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you again for the information on Permethrin. I have the house treated every spring for termites and random bugs. We put out stuff for fire ants and every now and then I'll buy one product or another that attaches to my hose and spray down the house if I see the bugs coming back.

We tried guineas and failed miserably. We are trying again, but it's slow going. We where up to 18 birds and thought it was going well, but then they started disappearing every night. One bird at a time. We didn't have the electric fence done at the time, and we think a big raccoon was climbing up the tree and getting one while they slept. No sign of feathers like you see when a hawk or owl kills them. We've seen that a few times since trying to rebuild. We now have the area entirely surrounded with three rows of electric wire. The lowest is just a few inches off the ground. It's a lot of maintenance keeping the grass from growing there, but that seems to be the only solution. I set out two traps and caught everything but the one killing the guineas. I guess he knew what he wanted and wasn't going to mess with anything I put in the trap.

We have also tried free range roosters. My wife refuses to let her laying hens out, but roosters are so mean she could care less if they live or die. After being attacked by them, I agree. A few have been killed just because of how mean they are towards us, others disappeared to coyotes. We have a few out with the horses and will add to them, but wont mess with them around the house.