The big thing that most people forget about the tick life cycle is that rodents are usually the 1st host. The best way and cheapest way to cut back on the tick numbers is small-medium sized non-venomous snakes like the milk snake and small-medium sized owls. Barn owl houses are very important and would DRASTICALLY cut down on the rodent population. You do have to be very picky about placement for owl houses because of their choices they like, the hole for the house is also critical because if it's too low in the front of the box then chicks that are too young to fly can get outside and end up dying after hitting the ground because the parents can't take care of them after that. The hole should be between 20-26 inches off the bottom of the box for barn owl boxes so they can't get out at too young of an age.
