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I have a few acres, and tried leaving it all to its own devices, and then decided against that after picking several ticks off my toddler and spouse. Now we hav

I have a few acres, and tried leaving it all to its own devices, and then decided against that after picking several ticks off my toddler and spouse. Now we have the area immediately around the house mowed, then a sort of intermediate area with vegetable gardens, a further area where we let the grass grow tall so the farmer down the road can mow it for silage, and finally a bunch of saplings beyond that to encourage wildlife and coppice for heating fuel down the road. I generally agree with your sentiment. Without those ticks we'd just have tall grass even close to the house. This is the general idea behind permaculture zones, incidentally https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Permaculture_Zones.svg/1024px-Permaculture_Zones.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Pe...

tomohawk 7y ago
check out tick tubes. you can make your own.
- jhauris 7y ago
  Tick tubes may help with deer ticks, but when we tried them they had minimal effect on other species (which also carry disease). Nothing we've tried (poultry, tick tubes) controls ticks as well as mowing the areas people will be.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    Doing some quick research, it seems tick tubes just contain permethrin treated cotton balls that mice (a tick vector) use for their nests? I've already got some permethrin we used for our outer layers and boots for hiking, seems easy enough to make on my own. Is that what you meant by tick tubes?
    - jhauris 7y ago
      Yes, that's correct. Again though, it's not a panacea.
sethammons 7y ago
If you haven't, you can try chickens or guinea fowl. Chickens are vastly easier, but I hear guineas are more effective (they were too wild for us and wouldn't return to the barn). Chickens will hunt down bugs in the area. Now that you have a garden, you would need to keep them out else they destroy it.
- Jedd 7y ago
  Guinea fowl are ... nonchalant. You need to keep them in your chicken (or similar) coop for several weeks, and then release them periodically during the day for several hours - they'll come back at night. Then you can basically let them roam, but they're notoriously dumb, and worse, careless parents. Ours would abandon nests & eggs eagerly, and then go play on the road (800 metres away) despite being on the property for several years. There was no water near where they'd loiter, and, of course, cars. The numbers quickly dwindled.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    We did keep them in the barn for several weeks. The first chance they got, they ran for the bushes and never came back. They got picked off by predators over the next week or so. Meanwhile the chickens are happy to go back at night for water and food.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  Hens are on the horizon but we only moved here a year ago and added a new human which has kept us pretty busy. This weekend's project is enclosing the garden to keep rabbits out anyway, though.

tomohawk 7y ago

check out tick tubes. you can make your own.

jhauris 7y ago
Tick tubes may help with deer ticks, but when we tried them they had minimal effect on other species (which also carry disease). Nothing we've tried (poultry, tick tubes) controls ticks as well as mowing the areas people will be.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Doing some quick research, it seems tick tubes just contain permethrin treated cotton balls that mice (a tick vector) use for their nests? I've already got some permethrin we used for our outer layers and boots for hiking, seems easy enough to make on my own. Is that what you meant by tick tubes?
  - jhauris 7y ago
    Yes, that's correct. Again though, it's not a panacea.

sethammons 7y ago

If you haven't, you can try chickens or guinea fowl. Chickens are vastly easier, but I hear guineas are more effective (they were too wild for us and wouldn't return to the barn). Chickens will hunt down bugs in the area. Now that you have a garden, you would need to keep them out else they destroy it.

Jedd 7y ago
Guinea fowl are ... nonchalant. You need to keep them in your chicken (or similar) coop for several weeks, and then release them periodically during the day for several hours - they'll come back at night. Then you can basically let them roam, but they're notoriously dumb, and worse, careless parents. Ours would abandon nests & eggs eagerly, and then go play on the road (800 metres away) despite being on the property for several years. There was no water near where they'd loiter, and, of course, cars. The numbers quickly dwindled.
- sethammons 7y ago
  We did keep them in the barn for several weeks. The first chance they got, they ran for the bushes and never came back. They got picked off by predators over the next week or so. Meanwhile the chickens are happy to go back at night for water and food.
CalRobert 7y ago
Hens are on the horizon but we only moved here a year ago and added a new human which has kept us pretty busy. This weekend's project is enclosing the garden to keep rabbits out anyway, though.