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?
Whiskey. Git ‘em drunk, and they’ll come off easier.
Okay, serious. Use tweezers, and be sure to pull the heads. Disinfect each spot immediately afterward. I didn’t worry much about ‘em back in the Ozarks, long ago. There were too many of them for worrying about them.
A Canadian told me that she learned from someone in Banff, that you should put Vaseline on each tick. She said that ticks breathe through their backsides and that smothering them with Vaseline will make them back out.
Weird, eh? Try that. Wish I’d known that back in the Ozarks so long ago.
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Tock.. try that. |
Stay out of the brushy woods and tall grasses. Here in Tennessee we have seed ticks brought to this country by the Fish and Wildlife Service when they brought Canadian Elk into Land Between the Lakes to restock elk. The ticks spread to the native deer and they’re now all over the state and spreading out.
We used to enjoy our farm. Not any more. We spray deet heavily when we have to go out, and immediately shower and wash clothes when we come back inside. All the men in our family have had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. It’s truly horrible.
We thank Uncle Sam for the ticks. They’ve made a hell out of the south.
Check sporting goods at wal-mart around the camping stuff. Used to see some spray tick repellant in a green can. I cannot vouch for it as I never used it, but I’m sure the clerk can tell you if it works. May also find some in Garden Dept at Lowe’s or H/Depot around the bug killers, etc.
DEET works if you want the ticks to smell you coming a mile away.
rose geranium oil and lavender oil are easier on the nose and skin tho. Might try that.
recipe here:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5374472_make-own-natural-tick-repellent.html
We used to sprinkle sulfur powder from the garden center on our shoes, socks, and pants legs to keep ticks and chiggers off.
Try stabbing at them with an icepick.
If that doesn’t work, see tagline.
By the way, I notice you said the ticks were “ramped.” Are they riding trick bikes as if in preparation for the X-Games?
Thanks, might give that a try.
Get a toothpick and use it to dab a tiny bit of Super Glue on the tick.
Now if I just knew where to get a hold of a tock that just might work as an antidote! I think they might be hard to come by, though, and really expensive.
They liked to be called chegroes if you don't mind!
Your tagline would just about take care of everything!
>>>> "A Canadian told me that she learned from someone in Banff ....." <<<<
What a coincidence....I think I met the same Canadian last week. Good looking lady about this tall, riding a snowmobile? Yeah....looking good. BUT, she told me stabbing them with an ice pick also worked well. I wouldn't recommend it, though, as it's so hard to find a decent ice pick nowadays, you would waste a lot of time looking for one. Think I'd go with having your dog sit on your lap and let the ticks jump off you and onto him.
Nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
They were always bad in Minnesota growing up it seems. Depends on the weather though. I recall various sorts of things including the Vaseline (didn’t seem to help), a just snuffed out match head held close - the heat was supposed to make them back out. (Never had much luck).
Now I just use a tweezers and hope for the best. But I don’t get them anymore here in Washington State to much. I think with tweezers you run the risk of squeezing nasties back into your system.
I do tuck my pants into my socks or wear gaitors in tick country, and plenty of strong DEET.
When I end up getting chiggers I used nail polish acrylic overlay (clear!) on them - that works real well.
The deer ticks (they carry Lyme diesese) are tiny - smaller than a period on a printed page. Pretty tough to try to find those. In deer tick country I have just tucked in, used Deet, take clothes off outside, and hop in the shower right away.
Not sure about ticks, but I recall an old Indian remedy for crabs down in the nether-regions. You shave one side, light the other side on fire, and then get them with an ice-pick as they go running to the cleared side.
BTW, we are gonna have a bad tick and flea season. The winter was on the warm side.
Spray on the lower legs where ticks usually try to attach
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.
Buy a couple of guinea hens, ticks are a favorite food for them and they will clear your property.
Don’t much like the scorpions when I find them in the house but tics, definitely could not handle those.
An Arkansas country girl told me the best way is to put ice on them. When you take the ice off, it shocks them and they let go for a few seconds. Haven’t tried it yet, though.
Our kids were bringing lice home from camp. The first year we tried the over-the-counter stuff and it was worthless. Then someone told us about Licenex shampoo. Also washed the clothes and sheets and EVERYTHING in it. Also put in a spray bottle with water to spray the pillows, carpet, etc.
The lice have built up immunities to the OTC stuff. But the Licenex works by attacking the critter’s body (exsoskeleton?) - eats away the calcium(?) in the body. Also eats away the eggs and larvae so they die.
I’m not sure how a tick is built, but it might work on them. After the fact. The Licenex is expensive, but it sure does the trick. (3 years now! But last year they came home lice free - they were VERY careful not to share hats, helmets, etc.).
Re: Do It Yourself Pest Control
Those guys happen to be just a few miles from me. I don’t know about their tick stuff, but I recently bought some phermone traps from them to deal with pantry moths. They have been awesome, work great!
I would definitely go with their treatment methods based on my experience with their products and recommendations.
As a kid growing up in the sticks of northern Florida we kept our heads shaved because it made it easier to find and remove the ticks.
Tweezers causes them to regurgitate. It is a long story but it occurred to me years ago the best way is to make a noose (I used 4-0 Nylon suture) of stiff nylon and make an overhand throw and cinc it around the thing’s proboscis and then put steady, gentle traction outwards. They release and don’t regurgitate.
Its true: boozers don’t get ticks; but neither do healthy people.
Get some Guinea hens. They will eat every tick on you property.
I thought that was the remedy for ‘crabs’...
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