need legit help - Ticks

I haven't posted in a while.
I have a serious tick problem:  I am literally a tick magnet.
I know about showering, clothing, all the stuff one can google. I do it all and it doesn't work.
I need real help keeping them off me.  I am on a fast track to tick disease and alpha-gal.  
I know there are things that are forbidden-to-be-mentioned on permies; can someone please educate me on why they are so bad?
I am desperate and need proven methods.  Please.

We just pick them off. My reading says that a tick has to be drinking your blood for something like 24 hours before they're at risk of regurgitating infectious microbes into you. So as long as I never go to bed without doing a thorough tick-check with my wife or kid, I figure I'm safe. And even living in a place where I might pick 50 ticks off during a spring day of work in the garden, we've had no disease. (I get that not everyone has another human to help with that level of grooming, but because I do, I don't really know anything about repellents, etc.)

Back when we lived in a cabin in the woods that was officially named 'tick hollow' even before we settled there, we wore as few clothes as possible and used masking tape as a removal method while they were still crawling, on skin, clothing and shoes...trying to catch them before they reached ones head of hair.  Wide masking tape was preferred.

We also kept cleared paths to the barn and gardens and used tape to gather ticks on the tips of weeds along the pathe edges. Summer seed ticks were the worst.

We were never tick free although got pretty good at avoiding the worst habitats
and dogs 🙄

Now, living on the edge of a rural village I get maybe 2-3 bites a year and have a bad localized reaction each time.

My wife is a bug magnet.  She uses TropiClean Natural Flea &Tick Dog &Bedding Spray.  She sprays it on her clothes. It is very effective for her.  

I go for serious clothes barriers. Cheap slick polyester fabric sucks, but ticks can't climb it or get through it. I make my work pants out of it. I have seen ticks slide right off it. My pants are strapped tight at the ankles, I have never had to remove a tick since I started doing this, they can't climb up or crawl under. I normally do just my pants, and only wear that sort of thing on my top if I'm working on my knees in weeds, but I always make sure I have tick proof top clothes with me. Zero ticks have been removed from me since 2016!! Barriers WORK. Don't expose ANY skin on the lower half of your body.

I worked with a couple of teenage boys that we counted ticks on us as we worked, in an hour I'd have none, one would have 20 one would have 50. The guy with 50 had genetics that made his skin more oily and also tended to eat more fried foods and junk food than the other one. Both lifted weights, so that wasn't it. Both declined to have me make them tick pants out of pretty colored cheap polyester :D  Both of them also were not concerned in the least about bites, despite me trying to teach them. Since then, Alpha Gal has moved into the area, on top of the Lyme that was here. I hope they both have wised up.

Since you have tried everything from Google, I did a search to see if what I am going to recommend and no it did not.

For years we have been using sulfur.

We have always used sulphur aka sulfur.  We keep a container in our vehicles at all times with an old washcloth.

When we get where we are going, we use the washcloth to dust our clothing, feet and ankles, and our hands and arms.

Dear hubby and I were talking about this just yesterday.

He reminded me that I used to buy sulfur tablets which he said really worked and then I remember the article in Mother Earth News about mixing molasses and sulfur to take internally to build up a resistance to ticks and chiggers.

Here is a thread about foods to eat to build up a resistance to them:

https://permies.com/t/148358/kitchen/diet-discourage-bug-bites

https://permies.com/t/178016/woodland/Ticks#1398627

There is also a Mother Earth article about taking molasses and sulfur for a preventative.  I just cant find it now.

Curious to know, are you picking them up when you are outside hiking, gardening, etc...  or are you perhaps getting them from indoor/outdoor pet activity (ie: taking Fido for a walk or letting the cat out to hunt mice)?

Rubber is mildly repellent, so rubber boots, or chunky rubber sole boots.
There is a product 'Atlantick', which has been clinically shown to work, made from plant extracts.
Balsam fir repels/kills them.

It's incorrect to say that ticks need to bite for several hours to transmit an infectious organism. In the case of erlichiosis or anaplasmosis the transfer happens at the instant of the bite, much like malaria is spread by mosquito bites. Some of the nasties, like Lyme, do give you a bit of time to get the tick removed. Better to keep them from biting at all to be on the safe side. I know this from experience.

Years ago I was told to put a capful of chlorine bleach in with bathwater and it would repel ticks or keep them from attaching to you.  I did it if I was going to be in tick areas and didn't have a problem with them.  If the other solutions don't work I think it'd be worth trying.

Hello Susan!

I use essential oils to keep ticks off.   For me and my kids, I put them on my ankles, wrists, neck and midriff.  I keep my pants tucked into my socks and shirt tucked in.   I will also put the essential oils on the outside of my clothes.  


For cats and dogs I put essential oils around their neck, belly and down their legs to their paws.
Neem oil is another great one for pets.  

In addition, if you can have chickens hunt the area for you that will greatly reduce the population.


With the essential oils and the chickens we don't have any tick problems around the house.  If we go out in the woods though, I am careful to tick check everybody and wash all clothes and shower when we come home.

Stephen Harrod Buhner recommends Astragalus as a preventative measure for those who live in Lyme endemic areas. I give it to my guys every day. I don't know if there are preventatives for other tick diseases. I buy it at Swansons Vitamins.

Permethrin is a very effective spray, but some caution against having it against your skin.

Sawyer who sells it suggests spraying it directly onto dogs, and that it slowly seeps out from their glands over a few months.

I would rather risk some Permethrin than Lyme, but that is my choice.

Not sure if you can get your hands on a few Guinea fowl.  Their favourite candy is ticks.  We have a flock and they managed to get rid of an incursion of ticks when some stock feed was brought in after drought.  They also got rid of the kangaroo ticks.  As a side benefit, they repel snakes and are good watch dogs sounding an alarm if something is not right. More information here: https://thriftyhomesteader.com/guinea-fowl/
 

Muscovie ducks were going to be my homestead tick remedy, as those ducks do not need water as much, and are said to be relatively quiet when compared to Guinea fowl.

Thank you.  Looks like I may have to be getting some fowl.  
Convincing the husband...hmmm.  The more tick bites, the easier it gets.

Paul Fookes wrote:Not sure if you can get your hands on a few Guinea fowl.  Their favourite candy is ticks.  We have a flock and they managed to get rid of an incursion of ticks when some stock feed was brought in after drought.  They also got rid of the kangaroo ticks.  As a side benefit, they repel snakes and are good watch dogs sounding an alarm if something is not right. More information here: https://thriftyhomesteader.com/guinea-fowl/
 

Got that website up already!  Thanks.

Be sure to have a varmit control system if you dont have dogs for the fowl,guinea  are pretty fast runners and can fly very well but the chickens and ducks are a little more vulnerable.I know everyone thinks birds in general will eat all bugs but i have had chickens for awhile and if i find a tick i try to get them to eat it,they just look at the tick then look at me like im stupid for trying to get them to eat a tiny little bug,now i have given them the swollen ticks from off of dogs and they eat them without hesitation.I dont have dogs anymore so my chickens are penned when im not around.I dont have dogs so deer are around more,during our deer season if you kill a deer in november it will be tick infested,usually right on sternum or hard to reach places.Deer are tick transportation devices because they cannot reach all over thier body much like a dogs back will have fleas and ticks.Kill all deer and you will likely have less ticks in a few years,just my theory but i hate ticks as much as i hate deer eating my garden,win win.

Oh another theory and this isnt mine,but opossums are said to eat ticks.I have had people tell me "dont get rid of your possums,your going to have ticks".I have ticks and i had tons of possums,now i dont have as many possums .They also eat chickens,you make the choice whether you want possums eating ticks or possums eating chickens.

Jay Angler.  I just saw your note re: "how much is me and how much is the environment?".
Alas, I believe it's mostly me.  I'm a tick magnet, lol.

Shookeli Riggs wrote:Be sure to have a varmit control system if you dont have dogs for the fowl,guinea  are pretty fast runners and can fly very well but the chickens and ducks are a little more vulnerable.I know everyone thinks birds in general will eat all bugs but i have had chickens for awhile and if i find a tick i try to get them to eat it,they just look at the tick then look at me like im stupid for trying to get them to eat a tiny little bug,now i have given them the swollen ticks from off of dogs and they eat them without hesitation.I dont have dogs anymore so my chickens are penned when im not around.I dont have dogs so deer are around more,during our deer season if you kill a deer in november it will be tick infested,usually right on sternum or hard to reach places.Deer are tick transportation devices because they cannot reach all over thier body much like a dogs back will have fleas and ticks.Kill all deer and you will likely have less ticks in a few years,just my theory but i hate ticks as much as i hate deer eating my garden,win win.

Oh another theory and this isnt mine,but opossums are said to eat ticks.I have had people tell me "dont get rid of your possums,your going to have ticks".I have ticks and i had tons of possums,now i dont have as many possums .They also eat chickens,you make the choice whether you want possums eating ticks or possums eating chickens.

I have a Dog and 1/4:  an 85 lb. German Shepherd and a 6 lb. Maltese, so no more raccoons or possum or rabbits on my property.  Only the squirrels are brave enough to live with my Axe (shepherd) roaming about.  The few deer in the area run through rarely.  

Unfortunately, Convincing my husband to get fowl will take a lot more effort than I thought. Going to visit our friends' homestead in June and they and I believe he will be fully converted, lol.

A bit anecdotal but after some careful observation on my homestead I realized that I was making a lot of tick-friendly environments that were not helping me one bit.

The biggest issue I had was the presence of Japanese barberry near by rear household door. Allegedly, the shrub actually ATTRACTs ticks which is less than ideal. It took me a while to finally kill off the last of the suckers but I have noticed a lower amount of ticks. I have also introduced a low growing/mulched area between the woods and my property to sway away ticks from traveling.

After one year (with a mild winter) I noticed a measurable reduction in ticks on me and my pup. We are finally getting a cold winter which should reduce the tick population more so we will see when the spring comes through.

I stole this post from here, about natural tick repellant for dogs.

Carla Burke wrote:Can't figure out where I posted it, but someone else asked a similar question, I think last week. I found an aluminum medal, somehow charged, that works with a critters own heart/ chemistry. It WORKS.  It's about $80, but works for 2yrs. It must stay on, so would need a waterproof collar, but it works so well (no troubles with glass, ticks, or even mosquitos, on my little Charlie, since I put it on her, that I'm seriously considering getting one to wear, myself, because the ticks here are TERRIBLE.
Here's the link: https://drjudymorgan.com/products/fleasgone-tag-non-toxic-flea-and-tick-prevention

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:I stole this post from here, about natural tick repellant for dogs.

Carla Burke wrote:Can't figure out where I posted it, but someone else asked a similar question, I think last week. I found an aluminum medal, somehow charged, that works with a critters own heart/ chemistry. It WORKS.  It's about $80, but works for 2yrs. It must stay on, so would need a waterproof collar, but it works so well (no troubles with glass, ticks, or even mosquitos, on my little Charlie, since I put it on her, that I'm seriously considering getting one to wear, myself, because the ticks here are TERRIBLE.
Here's the link: https://drjudymorgan.com/products/fleasgone-tag-non-toxic-flea-and-tick-prevention

"Glass" should be "fleas" ( I SOOO hate auto-corrupt...)

Ticks they suck, literally.  When I lived in north Central Arkansas, we could stand on our porch and have the wind blow the seed ticks onto us without leaving the house.   Had a dog get loose overnight and when we found him in the morning, we stopped counting after pulling over 200 ticks off of him.  In Ohio and people claim ticks are bad, I just say, well you have never been to Arkansas or Southern Missouri.  

Keep the brush down, mow.  
While people suggest Guinea Fowl, my experience with them has been less than  stellar.  Plain ole chickens work well.  

Here is what worked best for me in Arkansas.  Sprayed my shoes and socks with in insecticide. These days, I use Cedarcide. Works against the ticks and the mosquitoes and even keeps the flies away.  If it is warm out, wear shorts. You can feel the ticks going up your legs easier and pick them off. This works with chiggers too. I could feel the chiggers hit and spread out when walking through the vegetation then I could wash them off. If you wear sandals it is even better. Ticks and chiggers can burrow through your socks and you won't feel them until later.  I don't wear long sleeves either, I can feel the buggers walking up my arm and pull them off before they attach.  When you get in the house, you take your clothes off and you do a tick check if you are alone, use a mirror, if you have a partner, then check each other.  

I tried the tuck the pants in the boots and all it did was encourage the darn things to crawl up my pants and burrow in through the waist area. I would rather pull a tick off of my legs than off my butt or worse.  

Cedarcide also has granules that you can use on your yard and around your house. I have not tried them.

If I had a lot of problems with deer ticks, I would use tick tubes around my house and farm. You can make your own using toilet paper rolls and some cotton. You treat the cotton with an insecticide and mice find the toilet rolls with the cotton and use it for nesting material.  The mice get the insecticide on them and the ticks on the mice get killed. Mice are a vector for the ticks that carry lyme disease. You could use an organic type insecticide in the tick tubes.  
Anyhow, goodluck and I hope you stay disease free.

Neem oil helps me 100%.

In a mason jar I pour 3 fingers high any kind of kitchen vegetable oil. Then I add 10-15 drops of NEEM OIL. Stirr it. Ready to use.

After every shower/bath I dip 3 fingers into the oil solution and apply it sparingly on the lower part of my body (from hips down to the ankles). Then again 3 fingers for
the other leg. It doesn't need much, my skin is afterwards not oily!

I find less ticks on me and the ticks who crawl up my leg, die on the way!! Seriously, I find dead ticks on my skin, usually on shin level. I don't know why it kills them, but
I know that it does.

We used it also on goats who had some kind of reddish parasites on their skin and it helped there too.

Neem oil, the tick solution!! I really don't understand why this info is not already out there.

It's worth researching. Good luck

The information on neem oil is out there, but mostly for use in the garden. The active constituent, azadirachtin, works on the insects' hormonal system, and is often found in tick/flea shampoos and treatments, for dogs and cats. Those proportions you've listed are good, and as long as the neem/ carrier concentration doesn't go above 1/10, it is safe. Above that, and it can become toxic to our pets, and potentially, to humans, particularly those who are older, very young, already experiencing hormonal disruption, or who are imunocompromized.

I do use it in my soap/shampoo, and sunblock/bug repellent bars, for both the insect repellent factor and the incredible skin & hair benefits.

Larisa Walk wrote:It's incorrect to say that ticks need to bite for several hours to transmit an infectious organism. In the case of erlichiosis or anaplasmosis the transfer happens at the instant of the bite, much like malaria is spread by mosquito bites. Some of the nasties, like Lyme, do give you a bit of time to get the tick removed. Better to keep them from biting at all to be on the safe side. I know this from experience.

Totally agree Larissa
Some tick borne organisms are instantly infected by a tick bite, and, these happen to be super serious diseases. Nearly all affect red & white blood cell counts, and weaken our immune system’s fighting capacity  
Best not get get bitten at all.

We used to have lots of ticks. Now we get maybe 1 or two a year.

What worked for us was to fix our environment.
We have the animals graze down the property to 4-6”. Then use weed whacker to cut anything to 4-6” that the animals didn’t get.
This is so ticks can’t drop on us from high up.
And, so birds, mammals, amphibians, and lizards can easily find the ticks and eat them.

We encourage ground insect eating birds like wild turkeys (we have a flock of like 35 come daily from neighboring wildlands) to come to our place by never having our dogs out without supervision, and having a thriving environment here for them (that neighbors with lawns or chemicallybtraayed land, simply don’t have).
Pheasants, quail, and Towhees also eat them. As do insectivorous mammals like possums and skunks (which we also encourage here).
Certainly chickens eat about a pound of ticks a day per chicken, so that’s a viable solution too (IF you can 100% secure the grain, if feeding that. More on that later). We don’t have chickens tho. We rely on the wild birds, as noted.

We don’t go the spray or chemical treatment routes for our property, because this kills so many other vital parts of the full circle system.
It seems the more one sprays, the more problems one gets in the future.

Rodent control is a big one. Rodents - mice in particular are what really bring in Lyme disease on ticks - much more so than deer, research shows.
So we make sure we have no rodents: we don’t use or grow grain here, so that’s a big attraction neutralized. We’ve sealed our home and nooks and crannies in the barn where they could nest.
We use tall hard plastic water buckets for livestock that rodents can’t climb to get water, and we don’t put the buckets next to fences.
We’ve enclosed all kitchen compost piles in large wood-framed gopher wire pens, that rodents can’t enter. Compost piles from leaves + grass + manure from ruminant animals that aren’t fed grain, are not attractive to rodents in our experience… so those do not need to be enclosed. Just covered and turned EOD for a continuous supply of rich monthly compost! .
Lastly re rodents, we don’t mind feral cats roaming, so that helps w discouraging rodents too. Tho we really dislike their bird killing.
Yeah rodents don’t like our place, nothin’ for ‘em here 😁

Lastly we encourage lizards, who enjoy eating ticks, by providing them with wood and rock piles frequently throughout our property. (The lambs like to climb these too, so win-win).

Something cool that probably folks already know about, but I’ll mention anyway, is that certain lizard species have a really cool compound in their blood stream that effectively neutralizes  the Lyme disease bacteria in ticks when they bite lizards. So if the ticks then bite something else, no Lyme disease can be transmitted. This may well be true or partially true of other tick borne organisms too, but these have not been researched as well, yet.
But Lyme bacteria (Borrelia bergdorferi) is effectively neutralized for sure.
Very cool 👍

William Wallace wrote:Permethrin is a very effective spray, but some caution against having it against your skin.

Sawyer who sells it suggests spraying it directly onto dogs, and that it slowly seeps out from their glands over a few months.

I would rather risk some Permethrin than Lyme, but that is my choice.

I sprayed it directly on myself (and in my bed) for years, when I lived where the fleas were knee-deep. "Repel-X" horse spray to be precise, and I found half-strength sufficed. Also used it on the dogs daily, to keep flies from chewing their ears off. As you say, it is a much smaller risk than the various diseases. Pyrethrin comes from an African chrysanthemum; permethrin is the synthetic form, and has a little more duration, but either one disappears within a day or less.

Turkeys also eat ticks, but we have wild turkeys and you can't tell that they make any difference.

Permethrin vs Tick disease… everyone’s hard choice.

Just be aware that Permethrin, like many other pesticides, has hormonal influence on mammals including humans. It is apparently estrogenic in females and anti-testosterogenic in males 😬😳

Also it absorbs really well into skin.
Maybe only spray it on clothing?

Check out the research:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15599112/