Tick Identification & Prevention

Ticks are related to spiders. They have eight legs, a flat, oval-shaped body, and are usually dark in color. Adult ticks are about the size of an apple seed. Ticks present a serious home pest control and commercial pest control issue because their numbers are on the rise, and if they attach to you or your pet they are hard to find. Ticks can’t fly, they don’t jump, and they won’t drop down on people or pets from trees. Ticks will latch on to your shoe or your pet’s paw and crawl up to find a place to attach themselves.

Ticks are usually found in elevated wooded and grassy areas. Tall grass is a favorite spot for ticks to find their prey. Ticks eat blood to survive, so they live where the animals they feed off of roam. You can find ticks anywhere you find deer, birds, rabbits, squirrels, mice, and other rodents. Ticks detect a host using body odors, carbon dioxide, body heat, moisture, vibrations, and even by shadows. They like to make their home in places with lots of shrubs, weeds, tall grasses, and leaf litter. A single female, depending on the species, will lay a batch of eggs ranging from 1,000 to 18,000 eggs and then will die. The most serious problem with ticks is the diseases they can spread to humans, pets, and livestock.

Ticks are surprisingly fast and can move across your body quickly. You could find a tick nearly anywhere on your body. They prefer warm and moist areas. You will often find a tick in your armpits, groin, or scalp. While clothes do offer protection from ticks, they can still get under your clothes.

• Use Insect Repellent
• Wear Light Colored Clothes
• Avoid Areas with High Grass
• Wear Long Pants
• Wear Long Sleeved Shirts
• Wear Socks

Ticks are common carriers of certain diseases such as Lyme Disease & Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Not all ticks carry disease. It used to be getting bit by a tick was more of a nuisance than anything else. Nowadays you have a much higher risk of getting sick from a tick bite. In the United States, both ticks and tick-borne diseases have been on the rise over the last 20 years. If a tick attaches itself, you have 26-48 hours before bacteria transmission.

Tick bites are generally harmless without any symptoms whatsoever. But ticks do carry disease, such as Lyme disease, and cause other allergic reactions. Other diseases can be dangerous, and sometimes deadly, to both humans and pets.

When a tick finds a place it likes it will bite you. You don’t feel this bite because ticks secrete novel painkillers into their hosts through their saliva. This numbs the immediate area and allows the tick to burrow it’s head firmly in the host unnoticed. Once there it will continue to feed until it is removed or fully engorged. The amount of time a tick will stay attached to a host depends on what stage in the life cycle it is. The older a tick, the longer it can feed. Typically you’re looking at 3 to 10 days.

If you don’t remove a tick it will continue to feed until it’s fully engorged and fall off on its own.  The area where it falls off will often turn red and itchy like a mosquito bite. Oftentimes people won’t notice they’ve been bitten by a tick until they start feeling itchy. Ticks are common carriers of bacterial diseases that can make you sick. If a tick attaches itself, you have 26-48 hours before bacteria transmission.

There are a number of myths on how to get a tick to back out on its own. A match or lighter is a common one where the heat is supposed to compel the tick to back out of your skin. Coating the tick with vaseline or some kind of liquid dish soap is another common belief in removing ticks from your skin. The idea is to suffocate the tick forcing the tick to back out. Vaseline will not kill a tick. Unfortunately, these methods are more likely to cause the tick to burrow deeper into your skin, instead of coming out.

The CDC recommends the best way to remove a tick is with pointed tweezers. Tweezers should be used for tick removal using slow, steady pressure, pulling straight up and as close to the skin as possible, so that the entire tick and mouthparts are likely to be removed.

When you successfully remove a tick check and see if it’s still alive. If the tick is moving around and alive you can rest easy knowing you got the entire tick out. If the tick is dead it’s likely the head or some mouthparts are still inside your body.

If you fail to get the entire tick out of your body don’t fret. The head and mouth will not continue to burrow into your body. It’s very likely you will be completely fine. If there is a large portion of the head you should continue to remove it with sharp-pointed tweezers. If it’s just a small portion that you can’t get it’s likely your body will shed it in a few days. There is a strong chance you have some minor irritation in the area for a few days.  You are also more likely to get infected if the tick is a carrier of a disease.