TICKS!!!!!

[fizzle7033]

We are absolutely infested with ticks!! We pick at least 3 a day off of us! I pick them off during the day, I pick them off me in the bed at night... they are driving us crazy!! We have frontlined the dogs and seven dusted the area but they are still all over the place. Is anyone else having this trouble?? What will get rid of them???? HELP!!!

[sbemt456]

Ahh another Kentuckian, have you tried Malathion to spray the yard. I have really good luck with it here in eastern Kentucky. I spray all the way around the house in the yard, and it works great for ticks, mosquitoes, wasp and all those pesky things. I also spray all the outbuilding inside and out and we dont even have wasp build in the buildings. No skeeter problem either. Worth a try.

Good luck.

stella

[bee_pipes]

I would leave malathion as an option of last resort. Malathion is the granddaddy of all organo-phosphate pesticides, but poisoning your surroundings should be the last option.

Poultry is a good first step, as is upping the garlic in your diet. These are not 100% guaranteed effective, but they do reduce the tick population. Spraying yourself with deet is also preferable to spraying everything around you. There are also botanical sprays for your person – my wife like those but I am unconvinced at this point in time. We get ticks bad too, but they do have a season. They get really bad in the spring, make a resurgence late in summer, and that’s it for the year. Ticks are part of living in the country and you do have to stay conscious of them, but you could kill a lot of other beneficial insects with widespread spraying. You won’t find much help out there from consumer outlets – they make money off of selling you chemicals.

Back in the day, pesticides were based on organo-chlorides. This family gave us such fine products as DDT and chlordaine. They were pulled from the market because they hung around in the environment for so long. They worked really well, mainly because of the long residual. But the substances also showed up in human breast milk, fish, birds, etc. Organo-chlorides were banned and replaced by organo-phosphates. Members of this family include malathion, diazinon and oftanol. Malathion was used for animal dips, flea collars and area spraying. It does work, has a shorter residual than organo-chlorides, but can do some pretty nasty things to animals. I used to sell pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers at a feed store. We had a vet that used to come in to buy feed and she was telling me about dogs from the local animal shelter with kidney failure because a granule of diazinon bounced into their pen and they ingested it. Diazinon was being used to control fleas in the area. There have also been a large number of waterfowl kills due to diazinon and oftanol being washed from golf courses into water hazards. This is all some pretty nasty stuff, and will kill you if you don’t follow precautions, which nowadays are legal disclaimers to keep the manufacturers from being sued – precautions are more about reducing manufacturer liability, rather than consumer safety.

Organo-phosphates have been getting phased out for the last 10 years or so, the move now is towards pyrethrum-based compounds. Pyrethrums are based on an oil extracted from chrysanthemum (mums). That sounds like a friendly chemical, doesn’t it? Maybe organic? Organic means nothing when it comes to pesticides. Nicotine-sulfate is considered an organic pesticide because it has such a short residual rate and no bug has ever developed tolerance/immunity to it. But nicotine-sulfate will kill you just as dead as any poison. Most of these pesticides are neuro-toxins – the equivalent of nerve gas or other nerve agent. Pyrethrum and derivatives – resmethrum, et al, are the new kids on the block, approved by our FDA, an advocate for the manufacturers and food producers. The same people that brought us DDT, smoothed over mad cow disease, and has placed a number of questionable pharmaceuticals on the market.

Sevin, or carbamate, is a chemical in a family of its own. Made by Union Carbide, another outfit with the public interest at heart, it is a digestive poison and used as a general pesticide and animal dust.

Merit is a relatively new on used for dosing lawns to kill grubs. It is a nicotine derivative that acts as a systemic pesticide – turns the grass plants toxic and poisons the grubs as they feed.

We have seen a lot of ill effects from misuse of pesticides, and some unexplainable trends in people – like increased autism and allergies – that makes you wonder about the chemicals we have been given to use with assurances of their safety. Heck, they’re even finding the plastic used for baby bottles are leaching chemicals into the users. Do you trust these people? I don’t.

When you use a broad spectrum pesticide, you kill everything. Not only the pest targeted, but also the beneficial insects. Some of these, like honey bees, pollinate your plants. Some of them, like hornets and wasps, are predators that help to keep the pests in check. We have an arrangement with wasps – they don’t build in a place that is hazardous to me and I don’t knock their nests down. They are welcome to hunt in my garden. The best spray I've seen for wasps and wasp nests is freon. It freezes the critters and drops them in their tracks. But that messes up the ozone ;D We don't want to mess up the ozone, so we surround ourselves with poison.

The predator species take longer to recover from a spraying than the pest bugs, so the more you use pesticides, the further behind you fall in the natural balance, and the more you need to spray again – it’s a vicious cycle and a windfall for the manufacturers and retailers. If I was a farmer, I might feel differently, but even farmers are finding that if they encourage birds and predator insects they can cut their operating costs on pesticides.

There are other options – DE (diatomaceous earth) and nicotine sulphate for broad broad spectrum, BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) for mosquitoes and caterpillars, neem, and others that have a lower residual or specific targets. Everything you use is eventually going to make it's way to the local watershed - better to have something with a short residual life.

You are free to use whatever you choose, thank goodness, but consider the impact and the options. Pesticides are tools, and there is a responsibility that goes with their use. Choose wisely and use carefully.

(climbing off soapbox now)

Regards,
Pat

[rAcErRicK]

Fizzle, I used to hunt a lot, and was told by an oldtimer to go to the drugstore and buy a box of the old yellow sulphur that was used for medicinal purposes years ago. Take a pair of old sox, one inside the other, pour about half the sulphur in, and tie the top in a knot, giving you a nice handle to flop it all around the calf of your leg, and right on down to your shoes. I would even pull the pants leg up and powder my sox good. It worked really well for me, and several friends used my sulphur sock, and it worked so well, they made their own. It doesn't kill anything, but apparently the bugs don't like the taste of it, and will jump off of you and wait for someone else to come along and be their their host. Doesn't take long to apply, is fairly clean, except for a yellow tint on your clothes and shoes, has a faint odor, but I think it's better than soaking yourself in the messy, greasy, and poisonous sprays. Give it a try, it's very cheap.

[bee_pipes]

An excellent alternative! Sometimes the best way to deal with the buggers is to make yourself unattractive/unpleasant to them. You're right - better than deet and other greasy stuff on a hot day.

Regards,
Pat

[bookwormom]

Kentucky must be tick heaven, we are inundated, too. small comfort bee pipes, the ticks let up and chiggers and turkey mites come out in force. they are worse than ticks in my opinion. How did the oldtimers survive? My husband says when he was a kid it was not like this. I am wondering what happened.

[dreams_in_color]

I have been reading that guneas will eat ticks and other pest of the same nature. That some folks who have gotten guneas no longer have to use tick or flea control on their pets.

Susan