spraying for ticks?

I keep hearing about ticks. What can be done other than long sleeves/pants, DEET, and checking? Is anyone spraying? What are you spraying?

I know that they are out there (found one on a bathroom towel once), but I spend plenty of time outside, and have never been bitten.

Don't fret. And don't think that all conceivable threats need to be eradicated with chemicals, napalm and guns.

tomcat said:

I know that they are out there (found one on a bathroom towel once), but I spend plenty of time outside, and have never been bitten.

Don't fret. And don't think that all conceivable threats need to be eradicated with chemicals, napalm and guns.

+1

Not every unpleasant critter demands a chemical response.

I tend to take risks like this without using chemicals, but there are rumors that this will be a bad year for us with deer ticks, so I bought some chemicals. I got this product and this product. I haven't used them yet.

I know a couple of people who had Lyme disease. I'll take the bug spray over the ticks. I've never been bit by a deer tick that I know of, but I've had a couple of dog ticks on me, which luckily don't carry Lyme. Last spring we went for a walk in Lenape Park, I kept telling the kids to stay on the trail. My son went off the trail once, a bit later I noticed what looked like a tiny speck of dirt on his hand, I stopped him and looked, it was an adult deer tick (reddish body, black legs), had it been a nymph I most likely wouldn't have even seen it. Luckily it hadn't bit him yet so I was able to flick it off of him. The adults I know who have gotten Lyme have all gotten seriously f*cked up by it, I'd hate to think of what it would do to a growing child.

And they are predicting that this year will be especially bad for deer ticks due to the high mouse population from last year.

spontaneous said:

I know a couple of people who had Lyme disease. I'll take the bug spray over the ticks. I've never been bit by a deer tick that I know of, but I've had a couple of dog ticks on me, which luckily don't carry Lyme. Last spring we went for a walk in Lenape Park, I kept telling the kids to stay on the trail. My son went off the trail once, a bit later I noticed what looked like a tiny speck of dirt on his hand, I stopped him and looked, it was an adult deer tick (reddish body, black legs), had it been a nymph I most likely wouldn't have even seen it. Luckily it hadn't bit him yet so I was able to flick it off of him. The adults I know who have gotten Lyme have all gotten seriously f*cked up by it, I'd hate to think of what it would do to a growing child.

And they are predicting that this year will be especially bad for deer ticks due to the high mouse population from last year.

Right. I think there is a difference between spraying yourself with some Deet and nuking your back yard with toxins. Perhaps I misread the OP?

Just for perspective, doc ran a battery of blood work on me. Turned out I had Lyme titers. Just enough that I did a couple of rounds of antibiotics. Never had any out right symptoms...so, I was lucky. Not everyone who gets Lyme, has a really bad time. But, I concur, we shouldn't take chances.

gerryl said:

Just for perspective, doc ran a battery of blood work on me. Turned out I had Lyme titers. Just enough that I did a couple of rounds of antibiotics. Never had any out right symptoms...so, I was lucky. Not everyone who gets Lyme, has a really bad time. But, I concur, we shouldn't take chances.

It's also possible that by coincidence they caught it right at the beginning of the infection.

One of my former co-workers got it. He was physically fit, ate good food, worked out every day, and almost never took a sick day. Basically 10x healthier than I am. Then he got sick, except he didn't seem sick, it was aches and pains in his back. He couldn't lift weights any longer, started burning through sick days, got to where he started having trouble getting out of bed from how bad his back was aching all the time. Because of the symptoms his doc was trying to send him to a chiropractor or a physical therapist. He then asked the doc to run a Lyme test. The doc said he didn't have the symptoms, but ran the test to humor him. It came back positive. He was lucky in that one round of antibiotics got him back to about 80% of where he was before he got sick.

I know another woman who is on her third round of antibiotics, and is still having severe symptoms.

my sister never noticed a bite. She's been suffering for about 4 years now, and just finished another round of antibiotics. It took a good year before she was diagnosed - too late

I didn't go back for the results because I didn't know she had tested for Lyme. So it was 9 months later. But, I was obviously very lucky. I had actually been complaining about heart palpitations. That was why she tested for Lyme among other possibilities. but I didn't know. I've had a client who had severe symptoms from Lyme. It is horrible.

Tom_Reingold said:

I tend to take risks like this without using chemicals, but there are rumors that this will be a bad year for us with deer ticks, so I bought some chemicals. I got this product and this product. I haven't used them yet.

Hey! Thanks for using "Smiles" on Amazon! One option for the yard is to fence it to keep deer out and then wish for a dry spell. Don't know that this year will be worse than others. We did have some cold dry weather in December which hopefully killed some ticks. There is a product called Concern diatomaceous earth. It is a white powder made for insect control that you would dust on the area during a dry spell. It is made of diatoms which are sharp bits of silica. (Not the same type used for pool filters.) Cuts up the ticks and dries them out. Don't breath it in. Use a good dust mask. Otherwise, Permethrin lawn spray used maybe once if you have a bad problem might be the least toxic of the toxic alternatives. The ticks can become resistant to it. Deer ticks need deer to complete their life cycle and mice too. Adult ticks mature and feed on deer and then drop off to lay their eggs in the ground. Keep the deer out of your yard! Mice harbour the Lyme. Baby ticks, which are initially free of Lyme, feed on the mice and get It. There are also some products that are cardboard tubes filled with pesticide treated mouse bedding material. Throw them around the edge of your yard. The mice find them and make pesticide beds which kill the ticks on the mice. They are called Damminix. Finally, do tick checks on your kids every day.

Damminix! I love it.

But seriously, Lyme is awful. A former cow-orker got it and is disabled for life. Can't work any more and has trouble in the rest of his life, too.

High (up to waist high) grass is where you will most likely encounter ticks. Every butterfly trip in N.J. has proceeded with at least two or three ticks found crawling on someone.

Deet is the best.

You might want to check out Frontline on PBS. They were saying that part of the problem is that the deer population keeps growing. There is forecast for more Lyme disease.

gerryl said:

You might want to check out Frontline on PBS. They were saying that part of the problem is that the deer population keeps growing. There is forecast for more Lyme disease.

http://www.npr.org/sections/go...

gerryl said:

You might want to check out Frontline on PBS. They were saying that part of the problem is that the deer population keeps growing. There is forecast for more Lyme disease.

The county did the annual cull in the Reservation. Is this insufficient to control the local population?

Klinker said:

gerryl said:

You might want to check out Frontline on PBS. They were saying that part of the problem is that the deer population keeps growing. There is forecast for more Lyme disease.

The county did the annual cull in the Reservation. Is this insufficient to control the local population?

Deer roam. When the population in the reservation is culled, it creates vacancies for the excess population in Livingston, Short Hills, etc.

from Bob Roe: Many birds eat ticks. Chickens eat ticks. So the faster we can restore the "balance" of nature in places like the South Mountain Reservation, the better. The deer eat the leaves and bushes that are home for many other insects and birds and thus we have fewer birds and other insects to complete and eat ticks. I am sorry for the deer preservationists, they are certainly magnificent animals. But, too many are destroying the balance.

Tick season is here. I just found a fully engorged one on our pooch...ugh! She probably picked it up on Saturday when we were hiking up on the res.

The town should consider using deer bait stations that are designed to apply pesticide(permethrin) to the necks of deer, much like you treat your dog. The Reservation would be an ideal place to set these bait stations up. They have been used on Cape Cod with pretty good results. When the deer goes to eat corn in the bait station, they rub up against a roller which applies the pesticide and kills the ticks on the deer. It breaks the tick life cycle. I guess the County would have to approve it. See http://www.crdaniels.com/4post... .

That's so clever!

There was an article in NPR recently and they mentioned little bait tubes with pesticides were being tested to see if they could apply the pesticide to mice.

Can they apply rodenticide to the mice?

I don't think they wanted to kill the mice, just the ticks since most ticks pick up Lyme disease from the mice.

Though I would worry about the effect on the eco-system, what happens to the animals that eat the mice that have been coated in pesticide.

Yeah, the ecosystem. For sure, there will be unintended consequences, but we can't know ahead of time. If we kill the tick population, what tick predators do we incidentally kill? I'm not going to worry about that yet, given the danger of Lyme disease.

I was thinking more along the lines of DDT and how the eagles who ate fish that had been contaminated laid eggs with incredibly weak shells. These mice will be coated with pesticides. Other animals eat the mice. What happens to those animals?

I know what you mean, and it's a legitimate question, and there probably isn't an answer yet. I don't know who eats ticks or even mosquitoes, but I *think* I'd like to see them eradicated. Actually, I believe bats eat mosquitoes.

Chickens, some birds and, I believe, opposums eat ticks.

How about birth control for deer? Catch them and implant birth control. I'm sure it could be done. Or shoot them with a birth control dart. If there was a will, there would be a way. At the turn of the 20th century, deer were almost extinct in NJ. Now they, like humans, are over populated for their habitat.