What's your anti-tick regime in camp?

[Hun7er]

what do they do?bite? do they carry any nasties?

Yeah they latch onto you and suck out your blood, think its lymes disease you can get from them but not sure.

 

[big_swede]

what do they do?bite? do they carry any nasties?

According to wikipedia:

L. cervi can be a nuisance, but are generally harmless. They will not reproduce on any other host than deer. They will however bite humans, and the bites are said to be painful and may casue an allergic skin reaction. Initially the bite may be barely noticeable and leaves little or no trace. Within 3 days, the site develops into a hard, reddened welt. The accompanying itch is intense and typically lasts 14 to 20 days. Occasionally, an itch papule may persist for a year[3]. The main annoyance in humans is the inconvenience and unpleasantness of removing keds from hair and clothes.

I have not heard about disease spread with them, not among humans. Some bartonella disease among deer, according to wikipedia. Not common to be bitten among humans though. I've heard that they plague the moose though, and individuals heavily bitten scratch their hides so they become useless for tanning etc.

Again, according to wikipedia: " There are stray records of bites on humans, dogs and badger, and will occasionally commit to the wrong host"

 

[mountainm]

Not gone any way of preventing them but the shepherds here in Bulgaria dowse them with the local moonshine (Rakia) which removes them without leaving the head and cleans the bite which accelllerates the healing proccess. Hope this helps.

I think they upchuck when experiencing trauma though - emptying the contents of their stomachs into your bloodstream increasing the risk of disease. So not sure if this is a good idea?

 

[The Cumbrian]

Ticks love me, and I've found them ALL over me in the past.

Thankfully I've never encountered keds in the UK, only in Sweden ( about halfway down the thread ):

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50590&highlight=

They are incredibly annoying though, but thankfully I managed to get it before it got me.

Cheers, Michael.

 

[Gotte]

Thanks for the info.
So going back to my original post, if you had them on your clothes - say your gaitors or socks, and you took them into your tent, would they be then able to crawl across the tent and onto you, or do they need to be in contact with you via your clothing while you're wearing it (basically, clinging to your clothes then working their way in to skin through a gap), or do they just need to be in contact with bare skin (ie, wearing shorts and the like)?

 

[bivibabe]

I'm in Argyll and there are ticks all year round, less in winter but they are still out and about and getting more frequent on the cats just now.

 

[WeThePeoplexfbm]

i camp on a farm with sheep didnt know about ticks, but i never never ever take my boot nor clothes off ... never XD


---
Skipp

 

[ged]

Like Big Swede, I get almost no trouble with ticks but I've been bitten by deer fly a couple of times and I'd rather have the ticks! Other than wearing leather trousers when I'm out and about I don't do anything special to avoid ticks. I'm not convinced that eating things can help much with insects. I do eat garlic (but only because I like it ) and I still get bitten almost to death by mosquitos.

If you read all the literature about tick-borne diseases you'd never go outside:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticks

 

[Teepee]

Touch wood, I'm still tick free. Yay!

I eat lots of marmite, garlic and wheatgerm and my feet smell like death-If I was a tick, I wouldn't bother either.

 

[ged]

I eat lots of marmite, garlic and wheatgerm and my feet smell like death-If I was a tick, I wouldn't bother either.

Smelly feet -- I wonder if that's it? To the best of my knowledge I've only had one tick in my life. If I wear goretex footwear my feet get so smelly I can't bear to live with them, and at night I have to hang the boots up a downwind tree!

 

[Humpback]

I leave boots socks and trousers in the porch of our tent. Once inside with the midge door closed and with my companion's help i check myself over for ticks which are dispatched.
This year I have a stiff pastry brush with which I intend to brush down my trousers etc before going near the tent having read this somewhere on the interweb.
Hope this helps

 

[Teepee]

Smelly feet -- I wonder if that's it? To the best of my knowledge I've only had one tick in my life. If I wear goretex footwear my feet get so smelly I can't bear to live with them, and at night I have to hang the boots up a downwind tree!

It could be Ged. I could smell my feet last week while standing on the top of my ladders and the wind was blowing. Mustard gas is air freshener by comparison.

Does anyone want to buy mine or Ged's used socks as tick repellants? £40/pair-comes with free NBC suit and mask

 

[oetzi]

Nikwax Skitostop for fabrics contains permethrin and good for spraying on trousers and tents/sleeping bags to keep the little at bay.

Sorry, but this is not correct. According to the Nikwax-spokesman in germany, who supplied me with infos while I am writing a series of articles on ticks for my website, and the small print on the SkitoStop-bottle say so-
Its "natural" ingredients only and therefore limited in protection to up to 3h at best.

 

[daryl]

I absolutely hate ticks, but alas they adore me with a passion, upside is flying pests wont touch me. Ive already had one Lyme disease scare, if it was practical a flamethrower would be in my kit when visiting tick areas. Its now a common cause of immense amusement amongst my friends to see me 'checking' my areas throughout my countryside visits, but hey ho it wont stop me going out there, just a little bit of OCD and repellents seems to do the trick these days.

 

[Norton]

Tucking your trousers into your socks and leaving your boots outside is one method. But to be honest I don't think that any kind of decontamination regime will work that well - if they're around and you're yomping through the grasses, you will pick them up.

The most important thing is to give yourself a good inspection of an evening and pull out all offending beasties. I recommend the Tick Twister, NHS Highland now uses this tool as well.

You shouldn't see ay ticks until May at the earliest in the UK.

The day you posted this (27th Mar) I picked 11 of them off the dog after camping in woods near some dear trails. That was on the coast in Fife. They're certainly about before May. I know what day it was because my Birthday is the 26th.

 

[Ronnie]

Oh man, now I have to start worrying about them 2 whole months earlier?!

 

[twofeathers]

hello,read your thread.I went deer hunting in Macks Creek,Missouri this last rifle season,Two months later I found myself having A very high fever that tylenol would not help,flu-like muscle aches,and the worst spasms I ever dreamed of.one night I was so sick,thought I'd die and get it over with,went to the hospital.Was admitted.blood tests,and liver tests,liver was at 425 for enzymes.normal is 12-14.Was diagnosed with Rocky mountain spotted tick fever.In NOVEMBER i picked one tick off of my neck.Had A bad rash all over.anyway I always use Garlic,eat alot of it.use it in my horses feed.helps with the flys,and ticks on them.but I still got infected with this.10,000.00 hospital bill,and I still feel like @#$%^....every tick that bites me I put germ X on it .seems to kill it,but it backs out first.bring it with me to the woods now. Hope this helps.thx two feathers,many ticks.lol

 

[Ronnie]

That sounds deeply unpleasant, two feathers

 

[susi]

I once got a Deer fly on me forearm. It was weird, apparently quite rare that people get bitten, at least here. The whole forearm got inflammated and I had a swelling the size of half a peach locally around the bite.

Wow, quite rare someone gets bitten! Conversely when out in the forest around August/September, I tend to get over 10 a day on me. Maybe I smell of moose poo

 

[Gotte]

Thanks for that. Still not really sure what's the best way to approach this. I can see the benefit in leaving clothes outside, though putting them on next morning becomes a worry if ticks move inside them (don't know if they would or not). I read somewhere their natural instinct, when no animals are around, is to climb - apparently they climb up grasses and then hang there, arms outstretched, waiting for an animal to brush past. They then cling to any material, hair, clothing, and start their unpleasant work. Thinking about this, I wonder if hanging clothes up, under a tarp might be the best bet, as, in theory, they would climb up the outside. In a porch, they might be able to sense carbon dioxide and/or body heat and go for it. Great for getting them off clothes out there, but not so good if they climb up the outside of the flysheet and get transported back home. I understand they can survive for ages without a feed, and are pretty small when not engorged, and as such difficult to see. Myself, I've only ever seen them on the dog a long time ago. I was bitten by one once, when I was in my teens, but burnt it off with a cigarette - well, held a cigarette near it until the heat caused it to unlatch itself. Didn't even know about Lymes disease then, and didn't care