Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer.

[patrickg]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

Dan, If you use the 1/2% (0.5%) Permethrin right out of the bottle without further dilution it will be weaker than the DoD strength. I don't think from my extensive reading that I would be particularly concerned at that concentration.

13.5% diluted 15:1 is about 8/10 of a percent.

A good thing about DoD strength is lasting power, about a year of weekly washings. I read that some of the fatigues (BDU, Battle Dress Uniform) supplied to the troops are pretreated from the mfg. In the field, fatigues wouldn't last over a year with weekly washings so that takes care of it for the troops. You and I still get to price shop for Permethrin and bag our own. I do like the one tip I picked up reading about this stuff. Mark the garmet with treatment date so yo know when to retreat. They list times versus Permethrin strengths. I really really don't like ticks and my wife likes them a whole lot less than I do. We'll probably opt always for DoD strength and retreat in no more than 40-50 washings (our "fatigues" don't make it nearly a week). Won'r go a year but...did I mention that we don't likek ticks?

(Wife's cousin got Lyme's disease.)

Patrick

 

[dmccarty]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

PatrickG,

I was going to write the date of the treated clothes. I asked the wifey to do so but I'm not sure she did....

Around here the ticks and chiggers are not a prolbem after the first couple of freezes so I'm usually safe in November. In 2000 we had close to 24 inches of snow which is very unusual for this area. I was talking with someone who was in the woods after the snow and they found a tick on them! /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif We had had lots of cold weather for months prior to the snow storm so you would think they would have all died. Must have fallen off an animal...

I have three work pants and I'll treat all of them so I should get a good year out of them easy. But I'll treat them every year anyway if this continues to work. I'm somewhat scared of Lyme/Rocky Mounted Fever/etc. but everything I have read says the tick has to stay on for 48 hours to catch something. I get them off 12 hours at max. But I don't really trust that 48 hour limit anyway. Just rather not have the ticks on me in the first place.

I'm seriously thinking of chickens for patrol around the house site.... I'll have to keep them in those movable hutches since I have foxes, a family of hawks as well as owls.

Later...
Dan

 

[patrickg]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

Date'em Danno (like in 5 oh, bookem Danno), Just borrow the indelible pen your mom used to write your name in your underware before you went to camp. Are chickens really any good at cleaning out the ticks? Is this tested and independently verified? I might become a chicken fancier, I mean in addition to boiled, broiled, roasted, fried, or grilled. Guineas any good at this? They are also good watch birds. Double the utility at same overhead. Movable cages ehh? Sounding better all the time, maybe next year...

48 hr limit etc. Yeah, like the pathogens have a watch. The less time they spend attached the less chance of infection. Better yet if the lil suckers don't get attached to you. Better they suffer separation anxiety than you worry about infection.

My wife thought she saw a fox the other day. It was closer to me but it was just there for a second, she said and then it was gone, I didn't have time to turn to see it. She said it was buff colored so that eliminates the stereotypical red fox. It was the day after I thought I had seen fox tracks in the mud under the new house (ends of foundation not closed in until after plumbing done). I wasn't feeling too positive on my track ID but it did look like fox. Felt better after her sighting. I've seen and heard owls near the shop bld. Plenty of various hawks including red tailed so free range chickens would have to be clever or lucky without protection.

Patrick

 

[dmccarty]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

PatrickG,

I have HEARD/READ that chickens are good at feasting through all sorts of insects. If you keep them in the movable coup you get pest reduction and fertilizer at the same time. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I have been thinking of raising chickens for eggs for quite some time. My cousin who lives in Orlando has a couple of chickens in her back yard. I am suprised its legal for her to keep the layers but she has been doing if for years.

I was listening to Peoples Pharmacy last Saturday morning and they had on a researcher who was talking about a study they just published in JAMA. I think it was JAMA. Anyway, the study was looking into the effect of Omega 3,6,a,b,c,x,y,z vitamins/nutrients. Apparently one of the Omegas, I think it was 6, seems to lead to artery problems if it is found in higher levels in food compared with the other Omegas. If you are asking what does this have to do with chickens and our subject of ticks and chiggers? Well hold on I'm getting there! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

What the study found was that the factory raised chickens that are fed grain have high levels of the "bad" Omegas. Chickens that had a diet of bugs and grass, i.e., the chickens diet for thousands of years the Omegas were balanced. Having a food product where the Omegas are balanced does not cause artery problems. Apparently this was true of cattle and pigs that were raised primarily on grain. Feeding of grain to chickens, pigs, cattle, etc., is a modern practice. In the past the animals fed on different food products which allowed the Omegas to be balanced. Eggs from chickens that were NOT primarily fed grain had the "correct" balance and eating the eggs in large numbers did not cause health problems.

What she was saying made sense to me. I just found the book on Amazon.com. Looks like the show I heard was a rerun since the book was from 1998. "The Omega Diet: The Lifesaving Nutritional Program Based on the Diet of the Island of Crete" by Artemis P. Simopoulos, Jo Robinson. I just ordered the book.

I surely don't know if all of this is true but it makes some sense. I guess I'll read up on the subject. If it looks good we might be one more step towards chickens.... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I would raise I cattle for our own consumption but I know the wifey will name the calf(s) and there will be now way it/they would go to the butcher. Just would not happened. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Eating eggs I can get away with! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Got to watch them foxes though. We have had two rabid fox's bite people in the last couple of months. One guy was actually on a golf course when he was bitten. The other guy was bitten by the same fox TWICE over two days.

Later....
Dan

 

[patrickg]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

Dan, Thanks for the info. What a hoot, turn ticks and chiggers into palatable health food. There is a lot of more similar data out there, Dan. Read about micronutrients in the soil. Just because food grows in your soil doesn't make it have all the stuff it or you may need. Much agricultural acreages are "propped up" with chemical fertilizers that fall way short of providing all the micro nutrients needed and so beneficial. Ever hear of glacial flour? The milky looking stuff in Alaskan rivers from glacial melt. It is the extremely finely divided (super ground up) rocks from glacial action. If yio could get that stuff to spread on your property yoiu would have minerals aplenty. Rocks being fairly difficult to disolve in water, it helps to increase the surface area of the rock. Micro-pulverizing as in glacial action does nicely. I just don't know an economical way to get a lot of it down to this part of the lower 48. Studies have shown tremendous health benefits. It is like the difference between eating really nice photos of vegies versus eating really nutricious vegies.

Patrick

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

Patrickg

I read an article about something similar to your glacial melt. Seems to me they called it "rock dust" and said it is sold in bags by mail order and if I recall right, at some feed and grains.

Our soil here is all either sand or clay. Over the years I've noticed the farm land that has remained as farm land has a lot of clay and usually is chock full of rocks from fist size to basketball size. Somehow, the rocks are almost always associated with the better growing ground. Some kind of natural leaching action?

SHF

 

[patrickg]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

SHF, Maybe where there are big rocks there are littler ones and so on ad infinitum to get the dust size required to have enough surface area to do the deed. Just big rocks alone wouldn't be very beneficial. Think about trying to sweeten a pitcher of iced tea with one big chunk of crystalized sugar. Small surface area compared to a cup of granulated sugar. Would take hours of stiring to get the effect with the big lump. Of course rocks are considerably harder to disolve needing a much larger surface area to do it at an appreciable rate, even with disolved CO2 in the water (CO2 is AKA carbonic acid gas).

With periodic flooding (consider the Nile) renewed supplies of nutrients are repetitively delivered. Glacial flour in the soil of places like Talkeetna (sp?) Alaska contribute to the nutricious qualities of their vegetables. They not only grow big (I have pix of 68lb cabbage and zuchinni bigger than baseball bats) but they assey very well micronutrient wise. Typical supermarket produce from the Imperial Valley (Imperial county east of San Diego) is shipped nationwide to supermarkets and it looks real fine but has nutrition intermediate to really good stuff and a color picture of really good stuff.

To digress and wander farther afield: There are strong links between lack of micronutrients and animal disease (human disease too but that opens a different can of worms). So I say again, wouldn't it be loverly if there were an economical means of procuring large quantities of glacial flour at low costs. Some places get it deliveered for free via rivers. The rest of us would have to pay.

Patrick

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

Re: Tick, chigger, mosquito... Ahh summer. REVENGE

Patrickg

You may be right. The appearance of the larger rocks usually coincides with gravel deposits nearby. Some of the older farms with really good ground have rock piles big enough to build several barns.

SHF