Ticks

Tick Control Methods

tick

There are sound steps and procedures to aid in reducing the number of deer ticks (ixodes scapularis) found near your home and on your property. Landscape modification and property maintenance can cut your tick numbers. Pesticide treatments are only one tool in your arsenal against deer ticks.

  • Tick control normally involves educating our customers in how to create a landscape that repels ticks. This can be achieved by regularly cutting grass, raking up leaves and creating barriers between garden plants with mulch. These simple steps immediately reduce the risk of your family or pets suffering tick bites.
  • Keep Deer Away. Deer often carry ticks. Remove any food that deer like to eat, and they’ll come by less often. Also, try repellents to keep them out of your yard.
  • Treat Your Pets: they get into all sorts of places and can pick up ticks any time they go outside. Talk to your veterinarian about effective tick controls for your pets.
  • Use Mouse Targeting Devices: Ticks become infected with disease-causing pathogens when they feed on reservoir animals. Most studies support the notion that white-footed mice are the main host for Lyme disease spirochetes; in most settings, mice are the primary culprits for producing infected ticks.

Why do I have them?

Ticks prefer woods and tall grassy areas along animal trails. They cannot jump or fly but they will often lie in wait for a passing host in transitional zones such as where a forest meets a field, mowed lawn meets a fence line; a foot or animal trail pass through high grass and wooded areas. They become a problem inside homes when they are carried in on animals or humans. Typically, they live, along animal trails, and in animal nests and dens like woodpiles, burrows in the ground, stumps, logs, old rat and bird nests, and crawlspaces. In some years, ticks may become locally abundant, especially in wet areas.

General Facts

Ticks are small arachnids (all having 8 legs) that survive on the blood of animals and are basically external parasites. They will typically attach themselves to mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians. Ticks pose serious health problems as they are known to carry and transmit disease and illness to humans and domestic animals.

They are disease vectors (vectors are organisms that transmit infections from one host to another) of a number of illnesses, including Lyme disease, Colorado tick fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, African tick bite fever, tularemia, tick-borne relapsing fever, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Tick paralysis and tick-borne meningoencephalitis, as well as bovine anaplasmosis.