Ticks

[WebSlave]

Man, ticks are a real problem around here this year. Connie and I can't walk across the yard without picking up at least one or two of them. Usually we can feel them walking on us and send them to tick heaven on the express train, but every now and again one will latch on trying to get a blood meal. We have to do self inspections nearly constantly. Worries me with all the pathogens those suckers (literally) will carry. But so far (knock on wood) neither Connie and I have come down with any known tick borne illness.

Just a few minutes ago I was in the bathroom and noticed a medium sized one waving it's "arms" at me, like "Hey! Come here! I want to talk to you!" Then I saw two more really tiny ones walking across the linoleum. Guess they are hanging onto our clothes and drop off when we change for the night. Damn, I'm itching just thinking about them.

It's not just here on our acreage, as a friend of ours about 10 miles away mentioned that he is having the same problem. Gotten to where he doesn't even want to go out of the house.

Yeah, life in the country with nature all around. The bloom doesn't smell quite so good on this rose like it used to. I used to think that I liked just about everything nature wise except squirrels. And fire ants. Oh yeah, mosquitoes and yellow flies. The list just keeps getting longer and longer.

So tell me, how hard would it have been for God to make ticks not attracted to human beings?

 

[chrisis697]

Hey Rich try chickens. We moved 2yrs ago to a more rural house & got some chickens. I think we found one tick last yr.
Not sure if you need anymore animals but they eat a lot of bugs!
Good luck
Chris

 

[EdwardK]

Do what the military does and get some of your clothes treated with permethin. Like this place https://www.insectshield.com/ISYOC.aspx

 

[WebSlave]

Hey Rich try chickens. We moved 2yrs ago to a more rural house & got some chickens. I think we found one tick last yr.
Not sure if you need anymore animals but they eat a lot of bugs!
Good luck
Chris

Wouldn't work well here. Connie loves her lizards running around, and the chickens would make short work of those too.

 

[WebSlave]

Do what the military does and get some of your clothes treated with permethin. Like this place https://www.insectshield.com/ISYOC.aspx

Heck man, this is Florida. Most of the year it's shorts and sleeveless shirts. I know the stuff is supposed to be safe, but I'm not real keen on smearing chemicals on my bare skin. I guess vigilance is the key by checking for ticks constantly. Any strange bumps or itches need to be checked out immediately.

You would think as much as I sweat when working outside in the heat that any ticks on me would just drown.

 

[E.Shell]

I have found four ticks on my person already this spring, and two had started to dig in. Got three in one day, walking a wooded stream bed for few miles, then got the last one in my mom's yard. All Lone Star Ticks. Always used to just be Wood Ticks, now it might be anything.

Can't wait for the chiggers to get active, take your mind off the ticks...

 

[EdwardK]

Heck man, this is Florida. Most of the year it's shorts and sleeveless shirts. I know the stuff is supposed to be safe, but I'm not real keen on smearing chemicals on my bare skin. I guess vigilance is the key by checking for ticks constantly. Any strange bumps or itches need to be checked out immediately.

You would think as much as I sweat when working outside in the heat that any ticks on me would just drown.

The nice thing is that your not smearing it on your skin but bonding it to your clothes. Even if you just do your shorts (which are partially kept from your skin by your undies) you are going to keep them from getting above the leg portion of your shorts. Putting out permethin treated cotton for rodents to use in their nests has been shown to work in some studies as your targeting one of the main hosts.

 

[WebSlave]

The nice thing is that your not smearing it on your skin but bonding it to your clothes. Even if you just do your shorts (which are partially kept from your skin by your undies) you are going to keep them from getting above the leg portion of your shorts. Putting out permethin treated cotton for rodents to use in their nests has been shown to work in some studies as your targeting one of the main hosts.

So, I can add tick control to the list of reasons for shooting squirrels?

Right now, feeding the hawk has risen to the top of the list. I actually feel guilty when I see him up in a tree scouting the ground for an offering and I wasn't able to do my part.

 

[E.Shell]

So, I can add tick control to the list of reasons for shooting squirrels?

Right now, feeding the hawk has risen to the top of the list. I actually feel guilty when I see him up in a tree scouting the ground for an offering and I wasn't able to do my part.

Sound like you need a few F/T rats for your buddy for when the squarles run out.

 

[WebSlave]

Sound like you need a few F/T rats for your buddy for when the squarles run out.

I've been working on that "run out" thing for quite a while but there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of squirrels around here. I checked my supply of .17 HMR ammo today, and I should have enough for a while. But CCI came out with some ammo designed specifically for my Savage A17 rifle, so heck, I might have to get more of that. It's supposed to be 100 fps faster than other brands. I do have a couple of boxes of it but have only tried it in a bolt action rifle I have. Bullet impact seemed about the same as the other brands I was using to sight in that rifle. But 100 fps faster would mean a flatter shooting bullet.

Back when we used to have the mouse colony, I was feeding a small owl that was hanging around. He liked the fuzzies I would throw on the ground towards him when he sat in the tree to watch me. One day I gave him a small hopper, and he struggled to fly away with that one. Never saw him again afterwards, for some reason.

It's kind of difficult to get the hawk to associate free meals with me, however, since I have to shoot the squirrels when they are around and he just shows up later on. But I am thinking that he does associate the sound of a gun shot as a sort of dinner bell. I don't know what he thinks when I am down on my shooting range sighting in guns or doing target practice, however. Probably disappointed to find no squirrels for him, I guess. And perhaps thinking I lost my touch with the gun, too.

 

[E.Shell]

Your owl friend surprises me not to come back. Maybe something happened to him. Most wild animals weigh the 'calories/protein <> exertion' equation and free food is hard to turn down.

My mom has two Red Shouldered Hawks eating meat scraps about 20 feet from her kitchen window almost daily. Started out feeding the foxes, but then the hawks started visiting the next day for leftovers. If she puts food out in the afternoon, the foxes get it. If she puts it out in the morning, the hawks get it. I bring her 'deer corn' to put out and she has a half-dozen deer (that she has all named) that come into a housing development to eat in her yard. Replaced the outside floodlight with a red bulb so she could watch them after dark.

 

[EdwardK]

We tried putting some meat scraps out and all we got were vultures, 5 years later they still roost outback once or twice a month.

 

[WebSlave]

We seem to have quite a few deer around here, but I don't want to encourage them to hand around. Last year they discovered that my water melon plants had pretty tasty leaves, and they stripped them down to nubs. This year I'm hoping to finally have some real success growing melons, so I certainly don't want the deer to strip the vines bare. Heck, last year I also had 2 foxes digging up and rolling on one of the water melon mounds, so I really don't want them doing that again this year. Consequently, I put a cloth covering over the mounds, and set up "bunny blasters" covering each one. But I'm sure something else will come along that I am not anticipating.

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

We use permethrin spray here. For the humans, the dog, and the tortoises (as needed). I make sure to avoid using it before interacting with my pond since we do not want to be disruptive of non-target (non-pest) organisms, but the safety profile tends to be very acceptable for us.

This may not be your flavor, but I also encourage my opossum residents to do well on the property. They do not let me stretch tortoise food cost dollars as far, but the trade-off is worth it for us.

 

[WebSlave]

We use permethrin spray here. For the humans, the dog, and the tortoises (as needed). I make sure to avoid using it before interacting with my pond since we do not want to be disruptive of non-target (non-pest) organisms, but the safety profile tends to be very acceptable for us.

This may not be your flavor, but I also encourage my opossum residents to do well on the property. They do not let me stretch tortoise food cost dollars as far, but the trade-off is worth it for us.

And the benefits for having possums around are ___________ ?

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

They naturally consume ticks in large quantities within their territories. Not something I have dug into deeply, but they apparently are quick to detect and eat ticks which climb aboard their fur and since they rummage around underbrush like drunken rat-kangaroos, they incidentally come into contact with a lot of ticks.

Button quail and some other birds also work well for pest control, but the more wildlife on the land, the greater chance of button quail getting wrecked quickly by a predator. Keeping most fowl here unprotected means a fancy meal for an owl, hawk, snake, bobcat, or other animal, so quail are not a solution for me, but they are for some people. The quail would be hunted by one of the species of tortoise I keep, too, which is another reason they do not work for me. Opossums and my adult tortoises get along fine, though. The marsupials steal the excess fruit and pellets at worst, but that also helps keep the pens curated. Between the opossums and the dung beetles, cleaning pens for me only involves removing fallen Spanish moss clumps. No feces, no food scraps, no smell, fewer endoparasite concerns, and fewer ticks.

Some years are worse than others, but the permethrin usage and the opossum presence seem to do a lot for us here. I also like being able to pet an opossum (much to its confusion) here and there, but that does not relate to ticks.

 

[WebSlave]

Well, we have a LOT of possums running around here, so I'm not sure they are really doing their job concerning the ticks. Or if they are, then that means that without them, we might be knee deep in ticks otherwise. Surprisingly neither the possums nor the raccoons bothered the citrus last year. Actually surprised me quite a bit, because I have seen a lot of them on the game camera when I set it out. I was monitoring for turkeys when I put feed out for them, and anything they didn't get during the day would be cleaned up overnight by everything else around here. Surprisingly enough, the foxes seem to really like sunflower seeds.

Actually, I think what would be best for controlling ticks would be controlled burns. But seems like around here there have been far too many "controlled" burns that became "uncontrolled" for me to feel comfortable trying that on my own.