[Karma]

I have to say that TopSpot the fly/tick repellent does help with ticks.

Last week, I found one crawling on me and one trying to bite my chest- owww.

[Sdhaurmsmom]

ahh..wait till later in the summer and the CHIGGERS come out!! At least ticks don't crawl UNDER your skin. As if the ticks weren't horrible enough.

True that. Chiggers are worse, they're virtually invisible unless they're on a dark black background, then they appear as a tiny moving speck of dust. They burrow, liquefy your flesh, drink that, and eventually emerge to become a red spider mite. EUWWWWWW!!!!!

However: as far as I know, they aren't vectors of disease, so they are better than ticks and mosquitos in that respect. And only in that respect.

Why parasitic insects exist is one of the great unanswered questions to me....all the other creatures and plants seem to fit into the ecological jigsaw and make sense, but I believe if you pulled the parasitic insects out of the biological food chain, it wouldn't have much of an effect on other populations...biologists out there, anyone have thoughts on this?

[Sdhaurmsmom]

Just reading this topic gives me imaginary itches!

I find one on the mare just about every day. The dogs have frontline, but I still catch at least 2 a week on them. They seem to prefer hanging out right under the dogs' tails, which leads for an interesting looks on the mutts' faces as I grab the tweezers, lift the tail, and approach their bottoms!

Sorry, that was a great visual....

[Ashby]

You wanna hear something reeeeeellly scary?

I once picked over 100 off my beagle. Yes, she had Frontline on her. It still takes 'em a while to croak.
(insert nonexistent vomit icon)

Speaking as a fellow beagle owner, I know whereof you speak. I naively thought that a liberal dousing with Frontline would keep the little bastards off her, but you can't imagine my horror when I woke up one morning with her ticks in my bed and in my hair, because they'd ditched her during the night and fastened themselves on me. I must have spent an hour in the shower that morning. Later that day I was at work and found two in my hair (which had been washed and rewashed already that morning). At least the horse's ticks do not jump onto me, because I have the good sense not to let my horse sleep on my bed.

Someone needs to devise a vomit icon. This is one forum where it's urgently needed.

[wendy]

Why parasitic insects exist is one of the great unanswered questions to me....all the other creatures and plants seem to fit into the ecological jigsaw and make sense, but I believe if you pulled the parasitic insects out of the biological food chain, it wouldn't have much of an effect on other populations...biologists out there, anyone have thoughts on this?

they exist because they can, obviously. Clearly a very successful lifestyle considering how many ticks seem to pop up in my house. I have a theory that they are attracted by Frontline, ride the dogs into the house, and happily feast on the non-Frontlined humans.

[JohnDeere]

Why does poison ivy only bother humans?

Same reason as ticks exist--God has a great sense of the ridiculous!

[MistyBlue]

Why poison ivy only bother *some* people? And why did I grow out of getting it?

[JSwan]

Why poison ivy only bother *some* people? And why did I grow out of getting it?

You grew out of it, and I grew INTO it.


And guess how I found out about that little gem ??????

Neener neener, look, I'm not allergic, neener neener..........


.............................................

ow. scratch. scratch......

scratchscratchscratchscrath oh sh** scratch scratch........


The goats get into it too - then they brush up against me or I pet them.


Don't get me started on chiggers.


Oooo I'm starting to feel itchy.


Hey - for those afraid of going back in the water, an alligator was caught in a pond somewhere in Maryland, I think. Oh goody - someone let their cute pet loose after it grew too big.

It's not enough that the gigantic prehistoric algae moss covered seriously maladjusted psychopathic snapping turtles have taken over my pond.... some genius is throwing alligators in the water too!

[Equibrit]

I spent my teenage years in Central Africa and they had some doozy ticks there, who also carried really virulent and noxius diseases!

[MontanaDun]

OM - remember - if you have a tick bite, especially a deer tick bite, call your doc and ask for a short course of antibiotics for Lyme. Not every Lyme bite creates a bulls-eye rash, so you are way better off safe than sorry.

And if you didn't take antibiotics and you start feeling crappy/flu-like a week or two later - take 'em then.

Lyme is no joke.

MD

[alabama]

Oh, wait until you find one when you're in BED!!!! ACKKKKKKK. Then you have to completely shake everything out ... and even so, you still feel like they're just biding their time,... waiting,... until you sleep. Talk about Invasion of the Body Snatchers. ack ack ack ack.

I found a brown recluse walking on my bed the other day. Talk about being freaked out! I don't know which would be worse, brown recluse or ticks (which COMPLETELY ick me out!).

[alabama]

My girl gets horrible fat gray ticks infesting her mane. Pulling them out is a horrible PITA necessitating ace. Disgusting!!! Does anyone know of tick preventative drops for horses like they have for dogs? How about replacing the safety breakaway piece on the top of her halter with a medium-sized dog flea-and-tick collar? The chemical wouldn't have to cover her whole body, just her mane. Would it injure a horse?

Try the spot-on treatment Equispot. http://www.jeffersequine.com/ssc/product.asp?CID=1&mscssid=LTQAPJ8L6NQK9K31JVKE5RH5 6JCT2S03&pf_id=0026714&cmkw=equispot My horse gets nasty tick infections and I use this stuff. It works for him.

[RiverBendPol]

Ok, I agree, ticks are revolting little creatures but here are 2 little tick tales to gross you waaaaay out. Like Ashby, I have a Beagle who runs all day and sleeps in my bed at night. Clearly these should only be wintertime activities! I awoke the other night to creepy crawly feelings and found FIVE of the rotten little things marching all over me, taking samples as they went. That was the morning I decided getting up at 4 was a really good idea.
1/2 an hour ago I was corralling said Beagle from her daily escapades and found she had a deer tick on her upper lip. I yanked the thing off without getting a Beagle Bite, squeezed the thing between my thumb nails (the tick jar was too far away at the moment) and it POPPED. EEEWWWWWWWWWWW. Not only did it pop, the bloody goo shot up and hit me just above my eyelid. EEEWWWWWWWWWWWW. Yeck, I am still grossed out. yeck.

[Jeepers]

I found a brown recluse walking on my bed the other day. Talk about being freaked out! I don't know which would be worse, brown recluse or ticks (which COMPLETELY ick me out!).

Brown recluse definitely... necrosis is not fun!

[Jeepers]

JSwan, are you partaking in some of that french wine now?

I hate ticks too...don't give me the heebie jeebies, but I would say I hate the little suckers. I have particularly sensitive skin and any blood sucking parasite is the bane of my existence. I get huge welts from mosquito bites that turn into hard purple lumps that take almost a month to go away. The really bad thing is that my SO's hair is the same color as deer ticks so they're hard to spot on him, plus he's outside all the time (farmer)...and bugs seem to hate him...so they find their way over to me! Apparantly I must be a fine delicacy to them.

Blech!

Hey, can I use frontline on my SO? He's got about as much hair as a dog... I call him "my little blackbear" when I want to razz him and be extra irritating!

[ReSomething]

My God, RiverBendPol, did you have to share? I'm eating breakfast here!

Cripes these stories are gross (but funny). I'll tell you how many ticks I have on my new place - LOTS. Enough that I have decided to call the place the Rock N Tick Ranch. Well around here they are all "Farms". So Rock N Tick Farm. That ought to keep away the in-laws.

[bt]

YEAAAAHHHHHHHHHH 1 of the little scoundrels made the mistake of crawling on my arm last night, soooooooooooo i calmly grabbed a pair of tweezers and the grill lighter flame thrower thingeee and ROASTED the sucker!!! No muss no fuss since it wasn't "full" definitely a victory in the humans vs tick war.

[Auventera Two]

I was riding in the woods last night and while we were dodging a horse eating puddle, I got my left foot hung up in a vine hanging out of a tree. I pulled the vine down out of the tree, but just kicked it off and didn't think anything of it. A minute later my left arm and leg were on FIRE! I looked down to see about a 100 red ants covering me!!! Ants don't creep me out but those suckers HURT. I was doing the shuck and jive trying to brush ants off and it's a miracle the horse didn't promptly dump me in the dirt and take off.

[monstrpony]

Ya know, you guys have just given me one more small reason to not totally hate going through chemotherapy this summer. Having a bald head (etc. ) makes tick season just slightly less disgusting. And this appears to be a bad year, I've already found more on my dogs than I did all of last summer, practically. I got out of the shower yesterday, and found one of the blighters still sitting on my shoulder! I'm finding more than usual on the horses, as well.

Personally, I can handle ticks better than spiders. Guess I've just had more experience with them, and it's easier to distinguish the harmless from the bad (as in, all ticks are bad, but at least not deadly).

[Oldenburg Mom]

YEAAAAHHHHHHHHHH ...i calmly grabbed a pair of tweezers and the grill lighter flame thrower thingeee and ROASTED the sucker!!!

I have GOT to get me one of these things. I HAVE to ... what JOY you must have felt.

What does roasting tick smell like?