5 ms·

I’ve found the biggest places to watch out for ticks are where not many people go. Little travelled trails. The heavily trafficked areas seem to have way less t

I’ve found the biggest places to watch out for ticks are where not many people go. Little travelled trails. The heavily trafficked areas seem to have way less ticks. My working theory is the deer to human ratio of an area determines how many deer ticks.

kortex 5y ago
My partner got a bullseye-inducing tick byte in our front yard in suburban upstate NY. Hardly little-traveled. The absolute quantity of deer is more important than the deer/human ratio. Lawns make it super easy for deer to migrate, human presence suppresses wolves and other predators, and mice love our trash, houses, bird feeders, and pet food.
- mrfusion 5y ago
  I’d wonder though if deer use your front yard more than you? Especially in the pre dawn hours. Even if you garden you’re probably only out there a couple times a week? But you could be right that quantity of deer is more important. BTW have you considered guniea fowl? Or at least something like this might help. https://www.consumerreports.org/pest-control/bait-boxes-are-a-safe-way-to-keep-ticks-out-of-your-yard/ https://www.consumerreports.org/pest-control/bait-boxes-are-...
  - kortex 5y ago
    I am pretty they do, while I haven't seen them in my yard, they love my neighbor's ~1acre lawn abutting woods across the street. I see them hanging out there all hours of the day. I actually just learned about guinea fowl elsewhere in this thread! Definitely will be looking into it. I also started doing the permethrin soaked cotton balls in tubes. Mice collect the cotton for their nest and it kills ticks. Also our dog gets tick-killing meds and takes out a non-trivial amount just by collecting and killing them.
    - mrfusion 5y ago
      They could probably crawl over from your neighbors yard. Not sure how far they travel. Or hitch a ride on mice? Wow if tick killing meds exist for dogs maybe we could get deer on those. Problem solved?
      - at_a_remove 5y ago
        I know when I bring my deer into the vet for their annual checkup, they'll probably offer the shot pretty soon.
        mrfusion 5y ago
        You could mix it into food or salt licks or even hire people to hit them with medicine darts. I thought I’ve heard of that for deer birth control before?
        at_a_remove 5y ago
        Edible vaccines are not easy. There's a reason you are still getting injections. Shooting them with darts, well, those would be a hell of a lot more expensive than bullets. It seems ... fraught with a lot of potential for unexpected effects.
    - bstpierre 5y ago
      Based on our experience, with anywhere from 2 to about 15 in a flock, guineas aren't super effective at reducing ticks. They're also very noisy, leave big turds all over the place, and at least in our rural New England area, serve to attract predators. Our spring "dog tick season" has become intense the last couple of years. At the height of the season this spring the daily tick count from grooming the dog was anywhere from 10 (a light day) to a high of 27 ticks acquired after an hour-long hike. When it's this bad, I can pick up four just walking across the front lawn. During that season they're mostly not deer ticks, so fortunately they're bigger and much easier to find, and at least according to most literature I've seen, dog ticks do not transmit Lyme.
patall 5y ago
My grandma just got Lyme with pretty high certainty in her own garden. In suburbia in a million people city. With a deer:people ratio of about 0.00. From my understanding, ticks can be in any type of grass. If you somehow touch grass of any type, be it walking, sitting or hand-mowing, there is a chance of picking one up. Sure, there are few ticks in very populated areas, but I would rather guess that more people equates to more likelyness that someone else already picked up the ticks in that area. And obviously: there is less grass were many people go.
- mrfusion 5y ago
  Interesting. Maybe my formula only works for rural and suburbs. Maybe get enough people and they become the vector for the ticks.

kortex 5y ago

My partner got a bullseye-inducing tick byte in our front yard in suburban upstate NY. Hardly little-traveled. The absolute quantity of deer is more important than the deer/human ratio. Lawns make it super easy for deer to migrate, human presence suppresses wolves and other predators, and mice love our trash, houses, bird feeders, and pet food.

mrfusion 5y ago
I’d wonder though if deer use your front yard more than you? Especially in the pre dawn hours. Even if you garden you’re probably only out there a couple times a week? But you could be right that quantity of deer is more important. BTW have you considered guniea fowl? Or at least something like this might help. https://www.consumerreports.org/pest-control/bait-boxes-are-a-safe-way-to-keep-ticks-out-of-your-yard/ https://www.consumerreports.org/pest-control/bait-boxes-are-...
- kortex 5y ago
  I am pretty they do, while I haven't seen them in my yard, they love my neighbor's ~1acre lawn abutting woods across the street. I see them hanging out there all hours of the day. I actually just learned about guinea fowl elsewhere in this thread! Definitely will be looking into it. I also started doing the permethrin soaked cotton balls in tubes. Mice collect the cotton for their nest and it kills ticks. Also our dog gets tick-killing meds and takes out a non-trivial amount just by collecting and killing them.
  - mrfusion 5y ago
    They could probably crawl over from your neighbors yard. Not sure how far they travel. Or hitch a ride on mice? Wow if tick killing meds exist for dogs maybe we could get deer on those. Problem solved?
    - at_a_remove 5y ago
      I know when I bring my deer into the vet for their annual checkup, they'll probably offer the shot pretty soon.
      - mrfusion 5y ago
        You could mix it into food or salt licks or even hire people to hit them with medicine darts. I thought I’ve heard of that for deer birth control before?
        at_a_remove 5y ago
        Edible vaccines are not easy. There's a reason you are still getting injections. Shooting them with darts, well, those would be a hell of a lot more expensive than bullets. It seems ... fraught with a lot of potential for unexpected effects.
  - bstpierre 5y ago
    Based on our experience, with anywhere from 2 to about 15 in a flock, guineas aren't super effective at reducing ticks. They're also very noisy, leave big turds all over the place, and at least in our rural New England area, serve to attract predators. Our spring "dog tick season" has become intense the last couple of years. At the height of the season this spring the daily tick count from grooming the dog was anywhere from 10 (a light day) to a high of 27 ticks acquired after an hour-long hike. When it's this bad, I can pick up four just walking across the front lawn. During that season they're mostly not deer ticks, so fortunately they're bigger and much easier to find, and at least according to most literature I've seen, dog ticks do not transmit Lyme.

patall 5y ago

My grandma just got Lyme with pretty high certainty in her own garden. In suburbia in a million people city. With a deer:people ratio of about 0.00. From my understanding, ticks can be in any type of grass. If you somehow touch grass of any type, be it walking, sitting or hand-mowing, there is a chance of picking one up. Sure, there are few ticks in very populated areas, but I would rather guess that more people equates to more likelyness that someone else already picked up the ticks in that area. And obviously: there is less grass were many people go.

mrfusion 5y ago
Interesting. Maybe my formula only works for rural and suburbs. Maybe get enough people and they become the vector for the ticks.