Ticks are out.

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chinooktrail

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:(

Found one on the dog I am dogsitting last night.

Bummer, but part of life.

Check those little beasties!

:)
 
Yep, got one off the cat yesterday.
AS far as I know they are immune to Lyme Disease but I'm not real sure about that.
I have talked to a person or two who have been diagnosed with it... Not a pleasant thing at all.
 
Yeah, I have never seen a deer tick, this was a wood tick I got off the dog, fortunately those are the only type I have ever encountered... :eek:
Have a few friends with Lyme's disease, not a good thing... :(
 
When I used to live in Florida, I got them all the time. In the northeast, I've yet to get one. Weird.
 
I worked cutting trails last summer and would keep track of how many deer ticks I would pick off per day, then write it down in a little work logbook. It came to hundreds. Annoying.

They were wood ticks though. seeable and don't carry lyme disease. has anyone seen a deer tick in northern NE? I never have.

I also had a friend who had lyme disease. said it was terrible. He was from PA though, not ME, NH, or VT.
 
For those of you who long to see a deer tick, try visiting the woods in northeastern Massachusetts. They are everywhere :(

My dog picked up 30-35 deer ticks on a November hike with Sapblatt in Rowley, MA! I also picked up a couple, despite using DEET. Sapblatt got none, however. :confused:

I have to spray DEET from my knees down when trail running in the state forest by my house and do a tick check after every run. If I don't, I am likely to run into problems. Every member of my family has been on antibiotics for picking up a deer tick over the years :mad:

Marty
 
fyi, dogs are not immune to Lyme disease:

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/50600.htm&word=lyme

Not sure about cats.

We have one of these to help with tick removal

407126Prd.jpg

http://www.rei.com/product/407126

I'm told they're very helpful for getting them off of kids, too.
 
Thats weird, I have never encountered any ticks in New England in my life --- however when I was in NJ About 8 years ago I got 25 of the buggers on me in one 3 hour hike :(
 
Thank you Quietman for the links.

Good info, I have never seen the smaller variety, but loads, unfortunately, of the 'wood' tick type. My dog was very used to the after hike or walk 'tick check' I would perform. I think she thought of it as an after exercise massage and kind of enjoyed it, unless I found some. Fortunately for me ticks have a vey hard time making their way into husky fur and usually I could find them and fry them before they got a chance to attatch themselves. The dog I am sitting for is all balck and a lab, collie maybe mix? She is very dark, has longish fur and lots of it, and it is hard to search her for the dreaded beasts. She doesn't seem to enjoy the process at all, which makes it a little hard. All part of life. ;)
 
We took a tick off Orca yesterday, so they're out in south-central VT.

Dogs are definitely not immune - Terra's had lyme disease and I'm told it was very much not fun for her or for una_dogger.
 
Ah - that time of year, the annual tick alert...

Please be aware that ticks are active throughout the year here in New England. They are significantly less active in winter, but they are still there. There are even types of ticks that are active in antarctica in the winter.

Yes, cats can be infected with lyme disease. The usual treatment in cats, dogs, and humans is much the same - 3 weeks of doxycycline.

Nymph stage dog ticks are virtually indistinguishable from deer ticks. Because all ticks can carry diseases - some arguably nastier than lyme disease - I'm careful of any securely bitten-in tick. Ehrlichia, for one, can be very nasty.

Finally, just because you don't see them doesn't mean you haven't had one. A deer tick is incredibly tiny. So tiny that it looks like a (very slowly) moving speck of dirt - smaller even than a grain of sand. Engorged, they may get to be as large as a grain of sand - very easy to overlook, even in the shower.

When removing and killing any tick, try to avoid puncturing or squeezing the tick. Puncturing may release the diseases, while squeezing may inject them into the host. The tick hooks are a great tool that lift the tick away from the host. My favorite disposal method is flushing... on second thought, perhaps I'm breeding a race of mutant super ticks in the septic tank! However, if I'm out hiking, I'm not above puncturing them between two rocks if that's the only disposal method available.

Good luck - be careful - be watchful - and keep testing you and your dog

**edited: my tick removal tool of choice:
http://www.otom.com/

I prefer it over metal hooks because I more often leave behind heads or mouth parts with the metal hooks. Whether it's the metal or my use, I don't know.
 
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bushwacking

All this talk of ticks makes me wonder about how others deal with them during bushwacking.

I just avoid walking off-trail during the spring, and I'm careful to check after a hike or bushwack. Last year I started using permethrin spray. It hasn't seemed to stop the ticks from crawling on my pants. I was hoping to find a dead trail of ticks behind me, I guess.

What do you do?
 
jrichard said:
All this talk of ticks makes me wonder about how others deal with them during bushwacking.

I just avoid walking off-trail during the spring, and I'm careful to check after a hike or bushwack. Last year I started using permethrin spray. It hasn't seemed to stop the ticks from crawling on my pants. I was hoping to find a dead trail of ticks behind me, I guess.

What do you do?

Below are the steps I do when roaming off trail in tick country:

1. Tuck pants in socks to hopefully deter them from crawling inside.
2. Wear long sleeves for same reason.
3. Spray DEET from knees on down, including shoes, to hopefully keep them from hopping on for a ride.
4. Wear lighter colors; some say lighter colors are less likely to attract ticks.

This certainly is not 100% effective with ticks, but I feel it helps!

Marty
 
I have never noticed a difference in tick quantity between bushwhacking and using trailed routes. By far the worst tick infestation I ever had to deal with (I stopped counting after 100 on the dog, and 50 on me) was on wide maintenance roads through woods and powerlines - about as far away from a bushwhack as you can get.

Where I have noted significant differences is in terrain. Dry, sandy areas, especially with tall grasses seem to be the worse (like power line cuts), meadows are a runner up, with forested areas last of all.

With lyme, it's said that the tick must be attached for at least 2 hours before it can transmit the disease agent. For this, frequent tick checking should suffice. Una_dogger recently mentioned that ehrlichia transmits more quickly - she may know the statistic on this one.

Also know that, if you hike in the CT river valley in northern CT and throughout MA, lyme is considered endemic in this area.
 
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Dugan said:
I have never noticed a difference in tick quantity between bushwhacking and using trailed routes.

Interesting. In ten years or so, I've gotten probably over a hundred ticks bushwacking though the southern NH woods, usually in two or three at a time. But I run on a wide-ish dirt fire road in the same area and have had one - and I suspect that one came from my "lawn". The road and the woods both have plenty of mouse and deer traffic. Maybe that's just my personal experience.

I thought it had something to do with leaf litter and the underbrush.

There are several people on the immediate area, including kids, that have had lyme disease. I don't have science behind it, but it seems to me that deer ticks and lyme are now as prevalent in south-central NH as they were in CT years ago.
 
jrichard said:
Interesting. In ten years or so, I've gotten probably over a hundred ticks bushwacking though the southern NH woods, usually in two or three at a time. But I run on a wide-ish dirt fire road in the same area and have had one - and I suspect that one came from my "lawn". The road and the woods both have plenty of mouse and deer traffic. Maybe that's just my personal experience.

So much for anecdotal evidence, eh?

jrichard said:
There are several people on the immediate area, including kids, that have had lyme disease. I don't have science behind it, but it seems to me that deer ticks and lyme are now as prevalent in south-central NH as they were in CT years ago.

It's been a while since I renewed my research into lyme. Mine is about 3 years old - when Dugan 3.8 legs was diagnosed with it. At that point, it was moving north into MA from CT. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that it is continuing to spread.
 
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick

Ticks are blood-sucking parasites that are often found in tall grass, where they will rest themselves at the tip of a blade so as to attach themselves to a passing animal. It is a common misconception that the tick can jump from the plant onto the host. Physical contact is the only method of transportation for ticks.


I know my kids are more likely to pick one up when the grass is tall and/or wet.

Tim
 
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