Ticks are ruining everything!!!

[Rollermommy]

Our dreams are coming true! We have an wonderful aunt who has offered to let us build a house on her 80 acres in the Ozarks
So we go and pick out the perfect spot, find where the driveway/dirt road will be, pick out a place for the chickens, goats, and the big garden. We sit, dream, commune with the land and then walk back to the aunts house full of peace and contentment.....AND COVERED IN TICKS!!!!
They are horrible! I mean like pulling 10-15 off each person a day. And our poor dog is still covered! That doesnt even count the 20 or so you find on your clothes that you can just brush off. This REALLY bothers me. Mainly because I got lyme disease last year and I've never been more sick in my life. But there's no way i'm not going to move there because of the stupid ticks.
So...please someone give us some suggestions on how to get rid of them or at least keep them off of us. Unless its something organic, we are very hesitent to treat the land because all of our water will come from a pond and a small well. Any thoughts will be greatly apreciated

[Throkmorton]

How to get rid of ticks? Don't walk in tall grass in early spring. Heh, i really don't know. We have ticks here, and the rule is from March to June we have to limit our hikes and check each other over like monkeys when we get back.,

[flutemandolin]

As long as you're getting chickens, get a few guinea fowl; they eat them!

We're thinking of ways to decrease ticks here. Dd and I went through Lyme disease last summer too. One of the things we're thinking of is getting a few sheep and maybe goats to keep some of the brush and grass grazed down.

Congratulations on your opportunity; it sounds wonderful!

[MamaMonica]

Keeping out of long grass is the only way I know, too Your place sounds wonderful- maybe after you mow it and have shorter grass the ticks will not be so much of a problem.

[beanma]

i agree with shorter grass and guineas. do you know what kind they were? were they the teeny deer ticks or big old dog ticks? we have both kinds here in NC, but usu only the dog ticks make their way onto us. i did get into a nest of deer ticks or juvenile dog ticks one time on a hike when dd1 was just a baby. yuck yuck yuck! it was a one time thing, though. hope that's all it was for y'all. maybe you just picked an especially bad place to sit!

[Rollermommy]

Grass? :LOL No, let me paint this picture for you.....Deep, Deep, woods on top of a very rocky mountain that has never been inhabited to my knowledge, 3 miles of dirt road then hiking to get to the property, nearest town-Durham, pop. 80. Its mainly just trees, leaves, huge rocks/boulders, and some briar patches.
The ticks are mostly seed tick (deer ticks) and ones that are a little bigger with a white strip on their backs. We have thought of guineas but i'm not sure how much they would help if they have to be in some sort of caged coop. And they absolutely have to be caged for their own safety so that the hawks, eagles, bears, panthers and coyote dont eat them. I wonder if there is some type of "moveable" coop we could build and maybe move them around the "yard" once a week or so?

[hairylegs]

We had the same problem last summer-36 ticks off me after a trip to the garden. We got guineas, and we love them! There are lots of coyotes in our neck of the woods, but we've only lost one guinea-they roost in trees at night. Mother Earth News has some great articles about guineas and tick control in general. Their website archives all old issues. Good Luck!

[CrazyRED]

Gaiamama,
I live in these tick-infested Ozarks too. They are a pain! Just check yourself often, and consider guineas. They roost in trees at night, or just let them loose during the day and pen them up at night.
Since you are in the woods, keep in mind that those ticks fall off of the trees when you walk under them.
Good Luck!!
CrazyRED

[Rollermommy]

Thanks guys, seriously checking into the guineas
Off to Mother Earth news....

[tboroson]

The guineas do a great job.

Another suggestion I've heard came from Mike McGrath from You Bet Your Garden, which is a syndicated radio show dedicated to organic gardening (he also used to be an editor for Organic Gardening magazine). Take short lengths of pvc pipe and bits of carpet remnant. Line the pipe with the carpet, all the way around the inside. Then soak that carpet in the pesticide permethrin. (Mike was very adamant about this being the only time and only way he'd ever recommend using a pesticide, because it's contained and not just sprayed into the environment, and you can use a very very small amount. It's a pesticide that works especially well on ticks, but has very low toxicity for mammals.) Anyway, mice are the biggest carrier of ticks, and mice *love* little close places like those pipes. So, if you place them in hidey places like under bushes, the mice will creep in and brush up against the pesticide and get it on their fur. Then they become little walking tick killers. It not only kills the ticks they're currently carrying, they will continue to pick up ticks and kill them until the permethrin wears off. And, they'll continue visiting your little pipes and recharging.

[tboroson]

ooh, found a copy of Mike's actual statements on this:

Daminex tubes are rolls of cardboard that contain cotton balls soaked in permethrin, a pesticide that’s deadly to ticks, but very low toxicity to humans. The mice take the cotton balls back to their nests to use as bedding, and the permethrin kills all the ticks in the nest. Sold in sets of 24, the tubes are available at some retail outlets, you can order them on the web at Garden-Shops.com or via phone by calling their very dedicated supplier toll-free at his B& B: 866-401-9455 (“Chase House”).

Now, I want to make clear that permethrin IS a synthetic pesticide. And no, I haven’t gone over to the Dark Side of Gardening. This is the ONLY exception I make to my otherwise 100% organic recommendations. I make this huge exception for three reasons:
Ticks are a serious problem. They carry many extremely nasty diseases in addition to Lyme (I lost a close friend some years back to the lingering effects of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever). And they have proven more difficult to control naturally than almost any other pest on the planet.
Permethrin is a synthetic version of the old botanical insecticide pyrethrum, which comes from chrysanthemum flowers, and it’s about as low toxicity a chemical pesticide as you’re likely to find. And very low concentrations are used to kill ticks-without affecting anything else in the environment.
The products people would otherwise use are awful-like the nasty chemical repellant DEET, which doesn’t even work well against ticks and is absorbed by your body in large amounts if you’re foolish enough to slather it on. OK?

Alright, so here’s how to make your own, slightly different, ‘traps’: Put on gloves and goggles, spray a permethrin insecticide onto pieces of felt, heavy cloth or old carpet, line the insides of pieces of PVC plumbing pipe with the sprayed material, then place the pipes in brushy areas around your property. The mice will go inside the pipes to hide (they love tight little spaces) and the permethrin will kill their ticks-all without you spraying yourself OR the environment! Heck, you won’t even hurt the mice! Whether you use Daminex tubes or make your own ‘mouse wipes’, space the traps about 10 yards apart on the perimeter of your property, where overgrown, brushy areas begin. Don’t waste them on manicured lawns; you won’t find ticks there.

from http://www.gardensalive.com/article....cd2=1111244203

[sahmof2girls]

There are these nematodes that eat tons of yucky bugs. and they are safe foe people and animals check out bad bug eaters They eat fleas ticks and all those nastly little "bad" bugs

[blueholly]

Yep, I have to agree with the guineas too. They're big birds so no hawk or owl is going to make off with them, but a coyote could.

Once you're feeding them regularly, they will stay on your property and eat all the ticks they can find. Plus they eat small snakes too - the bad ones, hopefully.

A donkey is a great watchdog for your property and livestock too.

[BlessedbyLily]

I should have known that MDC would be the place to get answers to our tick problem!!

I usually hang out in the Diapering forum - maybe if I venture out into other forums I'll stop spending so much money...

Anyway, we're on 10 acres of thick woods with lots of underbrush and last year was horrible, tick-wise. They're already attacking our dog and making their way up to our porches so I'm in all-out battle mode. The idea about treating the mice is brilliant! I'm also trying to find some guineas - apparently they aren't usually available until later in the spring but I may have found a farm where I can get some adults or young adults.

I'm so glad I found this forum!!

Have a great day!

[athansor]

I used to have a tick nightmare too, and one thing that worked indoors (they infested the carpeting of the house) was diatomaceous earth (I'm gonna have to do some quick research and post more)

[athansor]

Here's a site that talks about using Diatomaceous earth. (apperantly it has a lot of uses in natural pest control). I sprinkled it onto my carpets, used a broom to work it in, then waited a day and vacuumed.
http://www.deliciousorganics.com/Products/DEarth.htm

[BlessedbyLily]

Diatomaceous earth has worked really well for us as well - I put it all around the base of our outside walls on the porches and it kills the nasty little things before they can climb up the walls or into the doors. Orange oil works well, too, if you spray it directly on them but you have to do it pretty often.

My dd had tiny little ticks on her way too many times last year and I refuse to stay cooped up in the house this year because of the little buggers!!

[momto l&a]

My mom always had me eat dried fruit as a child come tick season. Something to do with the sulfer kept them off the eater of dried fruit that had sulfer.

Guineas

Donkeys Thay are wonderful guard animals, thrive on very little and are cheap.

[~*max*~]

:

[Rollermommy]

Tried it...didnt do much unfortunantly For example if you have a potential of a hundred tick bites in a day the diatomaceaus earth would cut it about in half...still 50 ticks.

I've come up with an idea that may seem a little "out there" but I really felt like my "scared of ticks" energy was somehow making me their target so I sat down and searched myself for how I really felt about ticks. (i really do know how crazy this sounds ) But...I havent had a tick bite since I wrote this....

Ticks:

There is nothing within our creation that does not serve a purpose. Every human, every plant, every animal and insect all have a divine place within the structure of that which we call planet earth. And for a whole species to come into being, there must have been a collaborated effort to create it and a reason we thought its place was perfect. Ticks are a wonderful example of this. Although at the moment I cant seem to remember why we created them but I'm sure that with a little bit of study about their particular biology the answer to that mystery would seem quite clear. Deffinitely something to check into if I feel the need for more understanding. But as of now I'm content with my highest thought about ticks. What an incredibly unique insect ticks are. Like so many of us they feed off the energy of other forms of life, taking a small amount of their hosts energy--the blood. What a place to be...to love an accept the energy of all species, basking in it and letting that life force coincide with our own without doing any damage to our host. Its a beautiful agreement to sustain one another. I give to you what you need, but i have so much there is nothing truely lost. Not enough to hurt the host, not enough to feel any significant loss, but just enough to satisfy that momentary hunger. The only way ticks can be damaging to their gracious host is (1) if the host has called out that experience or (2) if the host is open to the creation of sickness. If we, as human gods--authors of creation, open ourselves up to sickness then the means by which we contract that sickness really makes no difference. When I say "contract", I use that term very literally. We have in an essence made a contract with the creation of sickness to entertain it in our bodies for a matter of time, calling it out for our own experience. And any experience is good, it is "well done". How can we know the experience of health and know it to be health if there were no experiences of sickness. How can such a small delicate creature, such as a tick cause a human god such physical ailment without the person agreeing that this tiny little creature could do such a thing. And what a stigma ticks live in...to "in our minds" be the carriers of such disease and suffering. They are just doing their job, minding their own business, taking only what they need to survive with really not much bother to us all. Then labelled the cause for disease. Its sad for them. They should be honored for their rightful place in our creation. They are a beautiful reminder of what we seek to be to one another. If for one reason or another ticks have become bothersome to you then close yourself down from being a viable host, but as a means honoring their instincts of hunger, give them another option. Communicate to them that for you to be a host would be distracting to a peaceful walk in the woods. Yes, commune wit them! Can we not commune with our own creation? Of course we can! But as a gift, an agreement, offer them something in return...a better host. Some may still continue to come to you if you are attracting them with your giving energy, but if they do simply remove them and set them free, or let them enjoy a small snack and bless them on their way.