How to Avoid Tick Bites and Lyme Disease
Prevention of Tick-borne Diseases is Safer Than Curing Them
Sep 11, 2009
As ticks are most active during the warmer months of the year, prevention of bites is the primary method of protecting against tick borne diseases such as Lyme disease, babesiosis,anaplasmosis, Ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain fever, tick fever, and others. Although people are most concerned about the deer tick (Ixodes dammini), any tick that bites may transmit disease to humans and domestic animals.
Modes of Prevention
The best general method of reducing tick bites is to wear light colored pants (not shorts) and long-sleeved shirts with tight cuffs. The pants should be tucked into socks and an insect repellent of choice applied liberally to the cloth of pants and shirt, and to your exposed skin. Even then, you need to check that ticks have not attached to or squirmed under the clothes, and look for ticks roaming through your hair.
For people who are allergic to DEET, taking 1000 mg garlic oil and 2000 mg fish oil capsules daily has been found by some to repel ticks just as well as insect repellent, and one does not have to remember to spray before going out. This does not repel biting insects (mosquitoes, gnats, flies) very well, but there are many plant extracts that can be applied to do this. Once imbedded, the tick must be removed. Ticks must also be removed carefully to keep the tick from injecting any disease organisms under pressure.
Control Ticks in the Yard
If reducing ticks around one's property is necessary, many pest control companies offer a wide variety of programs to rid the yard of ticks. These range from indiscriminate broad spectrum spraying to measures that specifically target ticks using minimal amounts of chemicals. As we have become more aware of the need for green solutions, the use of indiscriminate lethal chemicals has fallen into disfavor as broad spectrum insecticides kill many organisms besides the target species. The collateral kill ranges from beneficial insects (bees and mantids) to predators and parasites of the pest. Further, when the insecticide wears off, the pest returns, but without its control agents, the pest reproduces without controls and the subsequent population is often larger than before spraying.
For a pest control company to target primarily ticks, rodents (mice, squirrels, and chipmunks) around the property should be left alone – even though rodents are the preferred feeding ground for ticks.
Immigration of Neighboring Rodents
When mobile pest species such as rodents are exterminated in the hopes of reducing ticks in the neighborhood, non-territorial individuals move into the vacated territories. This often results in an overall increase in rodent density as non-territorial adults accept smaller territories than territory holders. Thus, more individuals enter the area than were killed and there may be an overall increase in the numbers of active ticks as the dead rodent's ticks leave them and the new individuals bring their own ticks with them.
A way to counteract this increase in rodents and ticks is to distribute insecticides in tubes that the rodents will enter. The insecticides specifically kill the ticks and insects that feed on the rodents while allowing the rodents to live. This effective mode of eliminating ticks uses a cardboard or plastic tube that can be purchased or made by the owner. The tube contains cotton that the rodents remove and incorporate in their nests. The cotton is impregnated with permethryn (commercial chemical) or pyrethrins (plant-derived insecticides) that kills ticks, fleas, and mites but does not harm the rodents. The rodents stay on their territories and there is no increase in their numbers
Since most rodents and their parasites are active all year, the cotton must be replenished as needed. The cotton has to be replaced every week or two at first and then less frequently as it is removed. Homemade PVC plastic pipes 1¼ inch in diameter are easy to find, not affected by the weather, and last longer than commercial cardboard tubes. Cotton and pyrethrin can be purchased separately, combined, and placed in the tubes when necessary.
Tick Exterminators
Of all animals that have been domesticated, poultry reduce tick populations fastest. Being omnivorous, keen of eye, and low to the ground, these birds are pre-adapted for eliminating ticks. People and pets living in rural areas where free range poultry are found receive the fewest numbers of tick bites because of the impressive job these birds do in eating ticks. The top five tick eaters are guinea fowl, chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks. In addition to eliminating ticks, these birds provide eggs and meat for the table, clean out other insects, and guinea fowl and geese sound alarm calls that inform the residents of approaching visitors.
By using two or methods of repelling or reducing the numbers of ticks, you can dramatically lower the risk of being afflicted with a tick-borne disease. As always, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: If you are bitten by a tick, become infected, and are misdiagnosed, the disease may become extremely difficult if not impossible to eradicate. The risk of disease is not worth taking chances.
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