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Gardening Tips
"Ain't No Ticks On Me?" You Hope!
You've probably heard that advertising jingle on the radio for a
product to keep bugs away. The second verse begins, "There ain't no ticks on
me..."
As summer beckons us outside, this might be a very good time to make sure there
really aren't any ticks on you... or on the kids, or on
Tabby and Fido either.
So what exactly IS a tick? Well, it's NOT an insect. It's an arachnid, which
means it's related to spiders, mites and scorpions. According to the folks at
K9Web there are 850 varieties of ticks and 200 or more can be found in the
United States. Ticks are the most important arthropod in transmitting diseases
to domestic animals and run a close second to mosquitoes in arthropod borne
human diseases. They transmit a greater variety of infectious agents than any
other type of arthropod.
How do ticks operate? They cling to one spot and do not move. They insert their
heads under your skin and gorge themselves on your blood. If this reminds you of
your teenage son, believe me: these little suckers are an even bigger headache.
There's a wealth of information on ticks available on the Internet. At
entomology.ucdavis.edu Larisa Vredevoe,
Ph.D, describes the difference between hard ticks and soft ticks, if you're
interested in telling them apart. The ones that are most likely to bother you
and your pets are those that "quest". They climb up stems of grass or sit on
leaves with their little legs sticking up as if they were mini-hitchhikers.
You brush by and bingo! The tick has a free ride and a free meal.
What can you do to protect yourself from ticks? Here are some suggestions from
Mike Potter, Extension Entomologist at the University of Kentucky College of
Agriculture:
1. Avoid walking through uncut fields, brush and other areas likely to harbor
ticks. When hiking or picnicking in these areas, wear long pants tucked into
socks and consider using tick repellents. Walk in the center of mowed trails to
avoid brushing up against vegetation.
2. Inspect family and pets after being in tick-infested areas, and promptly
remove any ticks which are found (ticks most often attach at the neck and
scalp). Use the method of removal described below.
3. Keep grass and shrubs in your yard trimmed, and clear overgrown vegetation
from edges of your property. Ticks avoid direct sunlight and will not infest
areas which are well maintained.
4. Free-roaming pets are much more likely to become infested with ticks than are
those which are confined. Pets may be treated with insecticide dips or sprays,
although these products generally lose effectiveness in about a week.
You can find out more by going to this URL and putting "ticks" in thesearch box:
uky.edu
To remove a tick, according to the K9Web people, don't use any of the folklore
remedies (matches, cigarettes, pins, gasoline) that will
irritate the tick. They increase the likelihood that the tick will "spit up" in
you, which increases the risk of disease. The mouthpiece is barbed rather than
spiraled, so trying to rotate the tick out doesn't provide any advantage. The
preferred method is to use special tweezers designed for that purpose, and pull
straight out.
Reference: Steve Jones,
www.landsteward.org
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