Some Visitors

The Bed and Breakfast is closed for the winter, but these visitors decided to come anyway.

 

As you can see, they are right off the back porch. 

 

I love that they live on our property.  And that they have a little slice of safety during hunting season.

 

But I don't really like them this close to the house.  Deer carry the ticks that cause Lyme disease, so I prefer they stay in the fields and woods where we don't go. 

 

Once RJ saw them all bets were off and they took off down the hill and towards the woods.  He has had Lyme disease and ehrlichia caused by ticks.  And that is with our using Frontline.  The vet suggested using it more frequently in tick season than the package suggests.

Do you think that is why he likes to chase them off?  Or does he just love to see them run and jump?

Tick Key

I saw this really cool thing at the store the other day.  It is a tool for removing ticks.

We put Frontline on our pets and spray OFF! on ourselves, but every once in awhile one gets through these defenses.

Then I get out the tweezers.  It is important to grab the head of the tick with the tweezers and not the body.  Squeezing the body forces everything in said body into YOUR body.  Gross.

When you try to remove a tick from a pet, you have to try to push all the hair out of the way so you only get the tick and don't pull out a bunch of pet hair.  They don't like that. Try getting a cat to sit still for a long time while you isolate a tick and then pull it out.  Not easy.

 

But this Tick Key looks like it will do the trick.  You slide it over the body until the notch catches the tick and then pull it out.  Sounds easy.

I am not willing to go roll in the grass to get a tick in order to try it out. But the next man or beast to get one will be my first guinea pig.  Here's hoping we don't have to use it, but if we do, I'm ready.

Have Tick Key, Will Travel!

I Want To Check You For Ticks

OK.  That is a quote from Brad Paisley's song.  And I don't really want to.  Use a mirror.

  

Ticks are bad for us this year.  One of the main issues for us, is fields full of uncut grass.  Ticks are opportunistic predators and climb out to the end of a stalk of grass.  Then, when you brush against the grass...they got ya! 

  

Did you know ticks were related to spiders?  So you have a spider that can bury its' head in your flesh and suck your blood.  And then they don't have the courtesy to have a meal and move on.  No.  They LIVE there until they fill up like a miniature balloon and fall off to feast on blood another day. And the worst part is when they are sucking you dry,  they are sharing bodily fluids with you and if they have a disease, so do you!

We will have to bush hog the grass before it is time to pick blackberries, if  it becomes impossible to cut it for hay.  I do not want to wade through thigh-high grass to pick berries.

We use Frontline for the pets, but there is only surface applied products like OFF! for us people and you have to keep reapplying it.  Even with Frontline, our dog got a few ticks and they ended up giving him Lyme's disease and ehrlichia.  He was on antibiotics for weeks and I am not entirely sure they did the job. Oh, goody.  More vet bills.

 

So when I read this article in the paper this morning, I got excited.  A robot that kills ticks and does not leave poison behind.

 

I love the whole concept of robots doing the work I don't want to do.  Maybe it was a childhood growing up reading, no devouring, Robert Heinlein. He was the best science fiction writer, ever.  His book, The Door Into Summer combined cats, robots, romance and time travel.  It is way dated because it was written in the '50s, but still enjoyable.

I sent a copy of the article to my son, Travis.  He is working on his Mechanical Engineering PhD and has built quite a few robots.   Here's hoping I get one for Christmas.  Of course, I have also requested a wind turbine to generate electricity.  That is at the top of my post doc gift list.

But tick removal is way up there.

We Poison Our Pets

We purchase poison and pour it over our pets.  And we do it on a regular basis.  We are also CHEAP pet poisoners, so we search the internet for the cheapest poison and use that.  We are bad people.

Because I am lazy, I don't like trying to carefully remove ticks from our pets.  ( What an indictment, lazy and cheap.)  You have to hold them still and comb all the hair away from the attached insect.  Then you have to use tweezers to grasp the tick at the attachment site, grab it and pull it out.  If it has been there for a while it may be stuck in there tightly, so keep pulling until it comes out. You also have to be careful not to squeeze the body of the tick.  You don't want the contents of the tick squeezed back into the pet.   Then go buy poison so you don't have to do that again!

   

I use the Frontline Plus for dogs and also for cats.  Do not mix these up.  Cats and dogs are not interchangeable and neither are their meds. 

Flea and tick preventers are not cheap.  I also give the dog heartworm preventative.  These add up, but it is cheaper than dealing with diseases carried by these insects.  Or getting fleas in the house.

The strange thing is that we get ticks, but I haven't seen a single flea since we moved here.

   

I also use Equi-Spot for horses.  Have you ever seen a horse in the field with a face full of flies?  If the owner just knew to put on some Equi-Spot, they will fly-free for at least two weeks.

A lot of people just buy the Frontline and Heartguard from the veterinarian when they bring their pets in for "service".  It's easy and convenient...and pricey!  There are a lot of sites online where you can buy these meds, but I use Joe's Pet Meds.  They are about half the cost that I would spend at the vet and they are mailed to my house.  No vet visit required.  The strange thing is that they seem to come from New Zealand.  I don't see how that makes for a less expensive product, but it does.

   

I wish they could make a similar product for humans.  I would love to put goop on the back of my neck once a month ( so I don't lick it off) and then not have to spray myself with OFF! every time I venture outside.  I don't like finding the odd tick crawling on me or imbedded in my own personal flesh.

I presume it is because humans live a lot longer than dogs and they do not know what would happen with long term use.  And because you buy the product based on weight, and women would buy a much smaller size than they really need, and then it wouldn't work!