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The Corroboree
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Ticks in my yard

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Hey guys i'm wondering if anyone can offer some advice about ticks. I have lived at the same place for about 10 years and my dogs have never had ticks or fleas. Today I noticed my dogs are covered in baby ticks. I have pulled atleast 50 of them this morning and they are covered again. Ofcourse I am going to go get some tick wash tomorrow, but can anyone suggest anything I can do to keep them away besides washing the dogs every day? Maybe some sort of treatment for the yard?

Thanks

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i'll tell ya why it's yuck.

it sounds yuck for evereyone.dogs,humans.cats.terAADACTYLSS, lambs,summer camp and humanity. i hope we make a biscuit that tastes nice"said retardo"? thnaks for trying to underfanstme shit mole. thankyiou

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^ :D

hmmm, unfortunately conditions this summer are predicted to favour hectic amounts of ticks, so maybe your situation will pass in a years time.

there are electronic devices for personal protection. i suspect that chemically defending your yard from arthropods would pretty much involve exactly what i said. pesticide barriers that will indiscriminately kill everything that wears its skeleton like a pair of overalls.

Edited by ThunderIdeal
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Lol ethereal drifter I will try making a biscuit that tastes nice :P

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i'll tell ya why it's yuck.

it sounds yuck for evereyone.dogs,humans.cats.terAADACTYLSS, lambs,summer camp and humanity. i hope we make a biscuit that tastes nice"said retardo"? thnaks for trying to underfanstme shit mole. thankyiou

Gold :)

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Nasty, ticks are nasty. I'd suggest chemical warfare on those suckers you don't want them to stick around in any way. And yes, we're seeing ticks in places never seen before so it must be a good year for them. Which I'm really not looking forward to :(

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Borrow some ducks. Then give them back before they start to drive you crazy. Or eat them

Seriously. I had ducks for a few years, it was at least 8 years before the ticks, meat ants and leeches moved back into the yard in nuisance amounts

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Borrow some ducks.

Seconded -- ducks are unstoppable slug and bug eating machines.

Otherwise, some Frontline ought to keep your dog tick-free for at least a couple of weeks at a time. Small price to pay to keep him/her healthy and happy... :wink:

Edited by antonsyd
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Thanks for the advice everyone :)

Antonsyd I always used to use frontline on my last dog and she ended up with thyroid cancer. The vet told me there is a very good chance that frontline caused it, so I have been telling everyone I know to avoid it at all costs.

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I always used to use frontline on my last dog and she ended up with thyroid cancer. The vet told me there is a very good chance that frontline caused it ...

Holy crap, that's awful, dude! :blink: I'm very sorry to hear that.

I won't recommend it any more -- it had worked for my dog in the past but he didn't get sick from it, so was probably just lucky...

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^ thanks anton. Don't get me wrong it is pretty effective, but its bad stuff man

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I don't wanna be one of those people that blames everything on climate change, but in the last 5 years it seems the ticks are going apeshit.. it seems plausible that the changing climate could play a role.. when I was a kid I was a total bush rat, constantly crawling around in the scrub.. we rarely got ticks when I wad a kid.. when we did it was usually the big fat blue ones that are always on cows..

Nowadays 2 minutes walking around in the same areas, almost anywhere on the nsw coast & you are likely to be covered in hundreds of those tiny little fuckers that can fuck you up.

In my experience it seems to have been getting worse every year for the last 5-10 years..

Who knows what the actual causes of this really are, but it fuckin sux I know that.

Edited by paradox
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Borrow some ducks. Then give them back before they start to drive you crazy. Or eat them

Seriously. I had ducks for a few years, it was at least 8 years before the ticks, meat ants and leeches moved back into the yard in nuisance amounts

what an awesome piece of advice. darklight is awesome.

maybe consider other carnivorous birdies too, like quails.

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I had ducks once when I was growing up. But we also had stupid chickens, who we kept with the ducks. Believe it or not, after a couple of weeks the chickens thought they were also ducks, and one day we came out and found they had drowned because they'd tried to go swimming. But ducks are cool...alongside owls they're my favourite bird, because they always have this mischievous look, like they're up to something. Plus they walk in rows which is kinda neat.

And Paradox - that may not be as far-fetched as some would claim. I mean, without a proper examination of the evidence it would be hard to say either way...but I know that at least one of the many lines of evidence supporting anthropogenic climate change is that species are moving into new ranges all over the world that previously would not have been possible for them...it's why the jellyfish and cane toads keep coming further south AFAIK. Also of note is the pine beetle situation in Canada, and various plants being found growing at higher altitudes than would have been previously possible.

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Paradox I think you are right about that.

I have 3 chickens but they don't seem to want to eat ticks. I will think about getting some ducks aswell

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Humans move shit about, that's why we have plant weed problems. I'd say that the ticks are likely an invertebrate weed, they were brought in from elsewhere, possibly even by your dogs, or possums, or bandicoots or something. Not that I'm a climate change denier, but ticks seem to be quite widespread up and down the coast so it seems they already have the ability to thrive no matter what the temperature. I don't know their life cycle, but I assume availability of water and host species would be the main indicators of whether a tick would do well in your area.

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Whitewind yes my guess is that the possums who live in my shed brought them in from somewhere. I can't really think of any other reason

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AFAIK tick numbers vary season to season based on the climate, that isn't to say their range expands or retreats but its similar to the way you'd expect fewer leaches when there is less rain.

Paradox I think you are right about that.

I have 3 chickens but they don't seem to want to eat ticks. I will think about getting some ducks aswell

chickens have to learn behaviours such as which plants it can eat and how to catch bugs. i'm not sure how it can be encouraged, apart from adding a more woldly chicken-mentor to the scrabble.

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Guinea fowl are supposed to eat ticks. Plus diatomaceous earth should help.

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Litttle bantams are the only chooks I've had that would eat paraylsis ticks, ducks will smash em though.....and exterminate leeches.

Also frontline the dogs (which are working dogs), otherwise the ticks will kill them... better than the shit we use to use.

Down these parts the little fckrs have only just started stirring, little ones disperse about and later in the season the biggens start to hunt then. They are usually dangling on the ends of vegetation looking for a host, I've pulled a few off me already this year....but I am always in the bush.

Best removal tool IMO. the tick key....good for dogs and two legs critters.

I find certain vegetation types seem to be more likely to transfer ticks over or be more favourable for them to be waiting in ambush on..

I'd agree last 10 years has seen them take rise in numbers.

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I find certain vegetation types seem to be more likely to transfer ticks over or be more favourable for them to be waiting in ambush on..

beware the soft 'bracken' Calochlaena dubia

7573348910_156cdbaeab_z.jpg

Those tiny fuckers though, they're almost microscopic, come in the thousands, it seems these are mainly ther ones that seem to have gone out of control, at least where i am.. i couldn't imagine many birds bigger than a wren eating those ones. maybe small skinks & things would..

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Thanks everyone for your advice. I ended up getting some pyrethrum based spray and tick collars. Ima fuck them ticks up good and proper

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i have a close friend with no thyroid gland because of thyroid cancer. happened in his mid 20's.

the thyroid gland is very sensitive, it could be any number of toxic exposures (with this person, i suspect over usage of early analogue mobile phone for work). it doesn't have to be a chemical exposure, i can be radiation and electro magnetic radiation exposure too. You can't really escape these things in modern life.

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