Tick Control

Eric Ronning

Identification

Tick control begins with identification. Ranging from the size of a period up to a quarter inch, ticks can be brown, reddish brown, brown with white mottling, or, when engorged, yellow or gray. Ticks have leathery, non-segmented bodies with either a hard or a soft scutum (outer shield) and eight legs.

Deer ticks: female left; male right

American dog ticks

Engorged tick

The tick is an ectoparasite that attacks birds, reptiles, and mammals. There are approximately 850 species of ticks worldwide, 80 of which live in the U.S. The tick was the first animal to be identified as a vector. A vector is an animal that carries a pathogen that causes disease in another animals. In temperate climates, ticks are the number one disease-causing arthropods. Some of the lovely viral diseases transmitted by ticks include: Colorado tick fever, Powassan encephalitis, and tick-borne encephalitis. Bacterial pathogens include: Lyme disease, relapsing fever, and tularemia organisms. There's also at least one protozoan pathogen carried by ticks: human babesiosis. And, last but not least, tick-borne rickettsiae that cause human diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and endemic typhus.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Never use any product containing pyrethrin or permethrins on cats. They are highly allergic to these substances and exposure can kill them.

Controlling Ticks

Remove ticks from yourself, dogs, and other pets. Ticks don't immediately attach themselves to their hosts. This window of time allows you a chance to find and kill them. If you find an attached tick, remove it in a manner that does not allow the head and mouth parts to break off and remain in the skin. Use blunt, curved tweezers and grasp the tick as close to the head as possible. Without crushing the body, pull it out. Crushing the body can inject its body fluids into the host, potentially infecting the host with whatever pathogen the tick was carrying. Clean the bite site with antiseptic. If the bite site becomes dark, inflamed, or infected, see a doctor.

Consider tick collars for tick control. While there is a lot of ambiguity over the safety and efficacy of tick collars, they have become safer and more effective over the years. Perhaps the best of the lot are the Bio Spot flea and tick collars. They claim to provide five months of protection, even when wet. The Preventic brand is also very popular. Remember, permethrin-based collars are poisonous to cats.

Control ticks with dips, sprays, shampoos, and powders. I don't know if people are still using flea and tick powders. It's kind of an outdated system. Plus, they're messy. Dips are mixed with water and applied to the whole animal. It's best to do this in a well-ventilated area. Sprays are the easiest of the four. Just don't spray it in the pet's eyes. Lastly, there's the shampoo. Once you lather up the pet with the shampoo, let it sit for ten minutes to soak in. This will be a challenge. Perhaps this is all the argument one needs for the super easy—but expensive—spot-on treatments? Remember that any product with permethrin in it should not be used on cats.

Use a monthly spot-on treatment to control ticks on dogs and cats. The active ingredients are one or more of the following: permethrin, pyrethrin, imidacloprid, or fipronil. The three top name brands are Bio Spot, Advantix, and Frontline. They come in a few different forms, so make sure you get the right type (tick or flea) and for the right animal (cat or dog). Just apply the small capsule of liquid to the skin on the back of the animal's neck. The ease of this system and the degree to which it is effective (both at killing ticks already in place and at deterring new ones) makes this the obvious choice when considering tick prevention for your pets.

Deter ticks with personal tick repellents. Before walking in tick country, it's a good idea to spray your clothing with DEET, Icaridin, or permethrin. DEET, well-known for its ability to repel mosquitoes, is also effective against ticks. Icaridin (a.k.a. picaridine, Bayrepel, and Saltidin), a recent compound developed by Bayer, has shown to be as effective (sometimes more effective) than DEET. It's also easier on the skin and nongreasy. Lastly, permethrin is the only compound shown to kill 100 percent of ticks that come into contact with it. It's not a repellent; it's an insecticide or, in the case of ticks, an acaricide. Spray a five percent solution of permethrin on your clothing (not your skin) before going outside.

Kill ticks in your house. If your tick problem has become an all-out infestation of your home, the next step is an all-out war on them. Start by procuring a sorptive/desiccating insecticidal dust such as Drione (ingredients: silica gel, diatomaceous earth, pyrethrin, and piperonyl butoxide) or Delta Dust (ingredients: deltamethrin and quartz) and a bulb, bellow, or electric duster. Search the house, inside and out, for any cracks or crevices the ticks might be using to enter your home or to hide. Squirt some dust in them and caulk them. For treating carpets and furniture, if you don't have cats, use a 0.5 percent permethrin spray. As soon as you're done inside, move on to killing ticks in your yard (see below).

Control ticks in your yard. Permethrin (synthetic pyrethrin), as I've mentioned, is the only compound shown to kill 100 percent of ticks that come into contact with it. With this in mind, it makes little sense to purchase anything else to use when spraying for ticks in your yard. Look for brands such as Permethrin Pro, Vector-Ban Plus, or Bonide Pyrethrin Garden Insect Spray. Start spraying at the base of the house and work your way out in concentric circles. Keep in mind that permethrin and pyrethrins kill insects indiscriminately (including beneficial ones like honey bees, butterflies, and predaceous beetles). Because of this, you may want to consider using Damminix Tick Tubes instead of spraying. See the right sidebar for more info.

Avoiding Ticks and Tick Infestations

Wear light-colored clothes. They make it easier to see ticks when they're on you.
Keep the lawn cut short. Ticks use tall grass as a launching platform to get onto prey.
Keep the branches of trees and bushes trimmed. Brushing up against branches along trails, openings, and sidewalks is a good way to pick up ticks.
Keep bird feeders well away from the house. Many bird species carry ticks. Also, the seed spilled under a feeder attracts tick-ridden rodents.
Avoid places that ticks like. Stay out of the woods. If you do venture in, don't brush up against vegetation. Also avoid areas with tall grass.
Leash the dog when you go for a walk. Dogs love to run around and smell, look at, and chase stuff. In doing so, they brush up against vegetation and pick up ticks. Keep the dog leashed.
Reduce mouse populations in and around your home. Mice carry ticks. Ticks carry disease. Do everything you can to control mice in your yard and your house.
Prevent pigeon ticks by preventing pigeons. Pigeon ticks, Argas reflexus, are different from other ticks in that they may try to make a home out of your home. Avoid this with proper pigeon control.

Natural Tick Control

Use a natural tick repellent and toxicant. The hexane extract of the gum of the African plant Commiphora erythraea (sold as bisabol myrrh or opopanax oil) has shown to be an effective repellent against the lone star tick, American dog tick, and adult deer ticks. The active compound in the resin are furano-sesquiterpenoids, which are toxic to tick larvae.

Use CO2 traps. These traps work well because ticks use CO2 detection to locate prey. A CO2 trap is easy to build yourself. It's a small platform with a covered box in the middle. The box has a small hole drilled on each of its four sides. A container with one pound of dry ice is placed inside the box. A barrier of sticky tape is laid around the perimeter of the platform. The ticks flock to the CO2 coming from the dry ice and get caught in the sticky tape. After three hours, about how long the dry ice will last, the trap will have captured most of the ticks within a 75-square-foot area.

Treat clothing with tick repellent. Clothing treated with some form of repellent and/or insecticide has been shown to greatly reduce the instances of tick attachment. Treat your clothing from the ground up. Thoroughly soak the clothing and then let it dry before going out. You can also purchase clothing already treated with insecticide. Both will survive several washings. Permethrin-treated clothing has shown to be the most effective.

Get some Damminix Tick Tubes. These tubes are filled with permethrin-soaked cotton and are spread around the yard where mice (the largest reservoir of ticks carrying Lyme disease) collect cotton to build nests. When nests are built with this material, ticks die and we rejoice.