Tick Warning

[DrainPondDesign]

Just so you don't feel too bad I have pulled over 20 nymph stage ticks off myself in one day or at least a couple deer, dog or Texas Lone Star ticks most days it is above freezing & that is on Long Island, NY.

If you want accurate information on ticks & Lyme disease go to the US Center for Disease Control in Atlanta at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Moving way north, no ticks, no termites but they have a critter called a Black-Fly that is real annoying but I’ll take them over ticks any day.

 

[shasta]

I would suggest that you talk to your Vet about "Preventic" tick collars. They are the single best tick preventive I have seen in 25 years as a Vet. "Frontline" on a monthly basis is next best for ticks and the best for fleas. For really bad problems you can use the two together. "Advantage" is only effective for fleas not ticks. "Advantix" hasn't worked out very well for me.

 

[dmccarty]

We have been using Frontline for years with great success on both ticks and fleas. Back in the city we had a flea problem for a short time that Frontline cleared them up quickly. The dog only gets dosed during the tick season. I put some on a few weeks ago and we will continue to dose until September or October. This has worked well. The house has a finished concrete floor, no carpets except a few small throw rugs in the kids rooms. If the Frontline needs to be reapplied and we have not noticed the tick(s) on the dog, we will find them on the floor. Just big gray grapes.

Usually they are dead when we find them. My guess is that the concrete dries them out. With no carpet there is just no place for ticks or fleas to hide.

Course in another couple of months the Chiggers will have hatched....

I saw Ratzenbergers "Made in America" they other night and they where making overalls. Hmmmm..... If I wore overalls the carpenter's tools belt would not pull down my pants nor would the chainsaw chaps.... Ticks would have to climb all the way up the overalls and then go inside to get to skin....

I ran down to the farm store and bought a pair. Worked well running the chainsaw in the woods clearing a property line while wading in some pretty deep brush. I'll start spraying with DEET or treat the overalls with Permithren which really helps.

Hopefully that will take care of any chiggers and ticks.

The kids and wifey laughed at my new clothes and started singing the Green Acres theme song. But I was tick free so I don't care!

Green Acres is the place for me...

Later,
Dan

 

[Soundguy]

What's a good treatment for chiggars? Will they eventually die on their own? or do you need special meds for them? I've got some deadwood to clear out after last 2 ys bad weather.. and It's got plenty of hanging moss I'm SUREW i'll come into contact with...

Soundguy

 

[DrainPondDesign]

Dmccarty,

Ticks seem to only crawl upward when on your clothes so if you tuck your pant cuffs into your socks & tee shirt into your pants they have to get all the way up to your neck to dig in. A light colored tight weave cloth is best as the smallest ticks can get through a coarse weave sock. If you can strip when coming back into the house & put the clothes into the wash.

Best advice is if you itch then scratch & if you feel a little bump go check it out. Tiny ticks are so hard to see that you need a magnifying glass to check any red spot or tiny allergy blister for the critter.

Keep scratching

 

[dmccarty]

What's a good treatment for chiggars? Will they eventually die on their own? or do you need special meds for them? I've got some deadwood to clear out after last 2 ys bad weather.. and It's got plenty of hanging moss I'm SUREW i'll come into contact with...

I have tried a bunch of home remedies. None worked. What I keep reading is that the chiggers are not under your skin according to the bugologists. The itching is caused by a reaction with the bug spit from the bug bite.

The only thing that has worked for me is to scratch the itches. Once the bite starts leaking white fluid it seems like the itch lessons. And take Benydryl. That is does seem to take the itch out at night. Seems like at 2:00 am the itching get real bad. I have a couple different ointments to put on the chigger bites that also seems to help the itch. But at night Benydryl seems to be best.

In my area chiggers start arriving in June/July and are gone by October. Thankfully they are not around 12 months of the year.

Chiggers and ticks like to hang out on plants about 18 inches off the ground so if you can mow where you have to walk that really helps. Not 100% but it helps. I treat my clothes either with DEET or Permethrin(sp). One year I was working in a cut over while wearing pants treated with Permethrin(sp). Two nests of chiggers, each dime size, hit each of my legs just below the knees. I watched them for about 10 minutes as they charged up my legs trying to get to flesh. They got slower over time. Eventually they stopped moving or fell off. If they had found flesh it would have been aweful.

I once looked at some land in shorts. After looking I left and drove back home. Five minutes or so into the drive I felt something on my legs and looked down. It was ugly. Lots of "pepper" on my legs. I stopped at the first gas station and bought the last can of Off. Use the entire can of Off. Too late. Worst chigger attack I ever had. Course it could have been worse.....

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I have had ticks crawl down. I have had them in my shoes trying to get past the socks. With boots I wear two sets of socks, a thin one that wicks moisture and a then a thicker wood sock. The wool sock gets pulled over my boot tops which helps keep the laces tied. The thinner sock goes over my pant legs. Lately I have been lazy and not treated with Permethrin and just sprayed with DEET. The DEET goes heavy over the socks/pant connection and then up to the knees.

They wee little beasties have also climbed down my shirt under the waist band of my work trousers. Tick and Chiggers go after warm, dark moist areas....

They also "scent" for the victims. One day I was taking a break sitting in a chair on our gravel road. I saw a tick moving towards me in the gravel. It would stop every so often, rear back and wave legs/antenaes at me. I would move my chair 90 degrees away from it after it started moving. It would stop, "snif" around to find me and then change direction to get to me. This went on for a awhile until I figured I had seen enough and crushed the little %^&*( between two rocks.

Later,
Dan

 

[MuncyBob]

...........after reading all this, now I'm itchy!!!!!!!!

 

[Jagmandave]

We've had a week of fairly cold nights in the high teens and low 20's and days only in the high 30's; the two weeks before it was in the high 70's low 80's. I'm really hoping that has knocked them down cause in the early spring it's a guaranteed thing for me to come home from mowing with at least a couple of ticks..........