Posted on 05/02/2012 11:39:35 PM PDT by Bellflower
Where I live and grew up there was hardly a tick to be found. We children played and played in weeds and woods and never had or saw one tick on us. Not anymore. The ticks are ramped. We love to hike and be outdoors, but of course, hate the ticks. Even hiking on a short grassy path almost two months ago you could see them crawling up your shoes and legs. They really are creepy and they are also know to pass any number of rather nasty diseases. So my question is, do any of you have any remedies or tips on how to keep ticks off from you?
I got my first tick ever at my side near my waist after mowing my lawn which had gotten pretty long (due to the repair shop keeping my riding mower for over a month). I was able to pull it out without crushing it. It appeared to be dead and didn’t have any blood in it.
I got my first tick ever at my side near my waist after mowing my lawn which had gotten pretty long (due to the repair shop keeping my riding mower for over a month). I was able to pull it out without crushing it. It appeared to be dead and didn’t have any blood in it.
Are you deadly to ticks? Maybe you can market that quality.
I’ve dealt with ticks for many years. Use permethrin spray on your outer garments and foot wear. I’ve used milspec stuff (yellow can/green top) and Sawyer’s. Google the Sawyer’s-it’s readily available.
For yard protection use a bifenthrin and/or a permethrin product. Both work on ticks (and most everyting else). I get mine from domyownpestcontrol.com. Get the generic stuff-much less expensive.
Ping
Yep. I remember using nail polish on the chiggers at Camp Geiger during Infantry Training School. As far as ticks go, I just pinch down into my skin as far as I can and just pull them off. Usually the head comes out.
We used to always use a hot needle. The heat would back them out then made them accessible to remove without leaving their head in.
Hike nude. Ticks won’t stay on bare skin.
The mild winter in your part of the country has made a great environment for ticks and fleas...Whatever you do, you don't want them in your house. They bread thousands of eggs at a time.
The best way to remove embedded ticks is to heat a needle and put it near the back end of the tick. This allows the tick to back out of your skin on its own so you don’t just pull out part of it while it’s head is still inside you.
What a nightmare! Has that happened to you or anyone you know? Thank God it hasn't happened to me!!!
Thanks for the other info.
Sounds like good advice. Do you know how long they have to be in before they can give someone a disease?
webboy45: “Hike nude. Ticks won’t stay on bare skin.”
Nude and completely shaved, maybe... Those buggers definitely like hiding spots.
Interesting addition of the vodka.
Someone else said to use rose geranium oil and lavender oil. I wonder if mixing together rose oil with rose geranium oil and lavender oil would work better than one or two oils, or if the three would be too much and sort of cancel each other out. I love the outdoors and am willing to go for the full monty if that would work better.
Bellflower: “What a nightmare! Has that happened to you or anyone you know?”
After they feed, the drop off (it’s actually something like, feed, drop, grow, feed, drop, multiply). If you don’t get ‘em before then, you will have thousands of very tiny ticks all over the place.
I speak from experience, knowing someone who didn’t aggressively treat an inside/outside dog until after the ticks were well fed and had fallen off inside. You would not believe how many can hatch, and they instinctively scatter and hide everywhere, in wall outlets, behind baseboard, etc.
I wage total war on them. No quarter for ticks! Unfortunately, my neighbors don’t appear to care, so my property is always under seige from their untreated pets.
Those buggers lay about a thousand eggs at a time and the larvae isn't destroyed by insecticides. The gestation is two weeks. So to be sure we got rid of the problem we sprayed every two weeks for two months. I'm kinda the OCD type so it's something that just about drove me nuts with steam cleaning just about everything that could be.
I have heard putting Dawn liquid detergent on a cotton ball and holding it on the tick.
I almost laughed, Bellflower. I am up at this un-Godly hour researching flea control & here’s a post about it. No ticks here (fingers crossed!), but they’re mentioned everywhere I’ve looked. This site addresses essential oils
http://www.thewholedog.org/EOFleas.html
They don’t look expensive at all & do look easy to use *and safe*.
I’ve always gone all paranoid at the sight of a single tick & used the yard stuff from the vet in the past. Apparently the new (to me, anyway) thing is “insect growth regulator” if they come home with you or come in with wildlife.
Amazon (I think via Do It Yourself Pest Control) has the best prices I’ve found. Archer IGR is for the yard & Ultracide is for inside.
You can get essential oils at a health food store. (I’m going to go with the kind that are ingestible in case one of my fur kids decides it smells “good enough to eat”.
Best of luck. Reliable sources (a Sighthound breeder I am very familiar/ impressed with) & reviews are excellent.
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