What if during your pleasant stroll through the garden, you came back and suddenly noticed a tiny dark speck crawling up your arm? Watching the beauty of nature turn into a threat to your health in an instant.
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Check PriceNonetheless, most people miss one detail. Encountering ticks is not a stroke of bad luck. These little arachnids engage in specific behaviors that we can learn to understand. By knowing ticks and their behavior, you can outsmart them. Let's examine the knowledge that goes into formulating the best strategies.
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Understanding Your Enemy
Ticks don't actively hunt for their prey but rather, wait for them to come to them. They are ambush predators, climbing up to the tip of the grass and reach out their front legs to wait for a host to brush past them to grab onto. This behaviour is called 'questing', and is most common in high humidity with moderate temperatures, especially in the morning and evening.
Ticks need moisture in order to survive, which is why dry, sunny lawns do not have ticks. When exposed to dry environments for long periods of time, ticks die.
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The best way to dodge ticks is learning when they are most active. Peak tick activity happens during cold and humid conditions as well as in the early morning and evening hours of overcast days. If you plan to do outdoor activities, do them during the hottest part of the day because ticks will be hiding in the shade.
Nymph ticks are hardest to spot in May through July. It's very easy to be bitten during this time as these ticks are super small.
Strategy 2: Create Area Safe From Ticks in Your Yard
Convert your property into a tick barrier! Ticks have a hard time existing where grass is cut to 3 inches or less. Also, consider adding a gravel or wood-chip border between your lawn and wooded areas. This dry barrier will halt ticks!
With regard to leaves, we ask that you primarily remove them where the yard meets the woods or tall grass. Leaf litter provides great wildlife habitat, but is also a perfect home for ticks, so we ask you to remove the leaf litter in areas where there is more human traffic, especially if it’s close to the road.
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Strategy 3. Pay Attention to Your Repellent
Tick repellents use several different methods to stop ticks. Repellents with DEET will stop ticks from climbing onto your skin. Permethrin-treated clothing will kill ticks on it within minutes.
Alternatively, essential oil blends that include cedarwood, eucalyptus and citronella offer some degree of natural protection. However, you may need to apply them more frequently than synthetic options.
Strategy 4: Look Like a Tick Detective
Wearing light colored clothes can help you see ticks that haven’t bitten you yet. It may seem silly to wear long pants tucked into your socks, but this will encourage ticks to crawl up the outside of your pants where you can see them.
Ticks tend to attach themselves to all kinds of clothing. Use a smooth fabric and they will have a harder time grabbing hold. If you are in bristle fleece and brushed cotton areas where ticks are present, it's best to avoid these materials as their fabric surfaces create a foothold for ticks.
Strategy 5: The 20 Minute Rule That Changes Everything
Here’s something that might change your mind- Ticks will usually spend 30 minutes up to several hours crawling around your body after latching on. They won’t start transmitting diseases immediately after attaching to you. In fact, they need time to find the best spot on your body.
It is best to do tick checks as soon as possible after coming home. If you wait until bedtime, then your ticks may have the chance to bite you. Check for ticks in warm and moist places like behind the knees, armpits, waistbands, and hair. By changing your routine slightly you may find ticks before they get the chance to bite you.
Strategy 6: Get a Grip on Your Local Risk Factors
Various outdoor spaces have different risks associated with them. Edge habitats, where grasses and brush meet the woods, have the greatest concentration of ticks. Beaches and open fields and mowed grass areas are safer.
Search for the tick-borne illnesses that are most prevalent in your area. In the Northest and Northern Midwestern states, Lyme Disease is the primary concern, and in the southeast, it is more common to have Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Knowing the risks in your area assists in determining the level of prevention needed.
Strategy 7: Correct Way of Removal
The first thing you should do is stay calm. Using pointy tweezers, grip the tick close to the skin and pull it out. Make sure you pull out and not sideways, and do not twist.
Be sure to disinfect your hands and the bite area first. Use either alcohol or soap and water. Then, put the tick in a sealed container. Write down the date and location of the bite. This will help healthcare workers in the future, should symptoms develop.
For 30 days, monitor your health and the bite site. Lyme disease causes an annoying circular rash. However, this symptom only occurs in about 70-80% of the cases. Therefore, consider the possibility of the flu, strange rashes anywhere on your body, or if you experience an unusual level of fatigue.
There are many different strategies that can be used to help prevent tick-borne illness. It is possible to combine these seven strategies to create protective layers as one strategy may fail while others will still protect you. We don’t want you to avoid the outdoors. Instead, we want to help you enjoy the wilderness with confidence and the best preventative measures.
