3 ticks yesterday on myself

Make empty toilet paper tubes stuffed with cotton balls soaked in permethrin and throw them around the property. Mice and squirrels will use the cotton in their nests and kill the ticks for you. It makes a huge difference

that is a really good idea
stop the life cycle where it breeds.

I'm out in the woods/feilds pretty much everyday for at least and hour or two.

I have not seen a tick yet.

Last year I saw 2 all year.

I don't have many at all around here.

Prescribed burns supposedly help. I do lots of burning in my feilds and woods every year.

Ticks were unheard of in southern WI. But lately they have become a thing.

Why?

It isn't global warming as the southern 1/2 of the state is warmer than the northern 1/2 that has always had lots of ticks.

Thing that makes the most sense to me is the exploding deer herd in the southern 1/2 in the last 20-30 years.

Picked about a doz off my hide this spring.

Ticks are terrible around here this year.

I went mushroom hunting this passed Tuesday afternoon, my wife picked 37 ticks off of me when I got home.

No I didn't think to spray myself down.

I must be super sweet !

I am about as far south in WI as you can get

if you are lucky enough to not have any may be a local soil difference.
didn't see many around my parents where they have hard clay a couple inches under the grass , but where I live in the sugar sand , they are thick.

the deer herd , we significantly reduced it in 2003-2011 it took years outside of the metro areas to recover form those were the years we had earn a buck and they gave out 4 free do tags at a time and as many as you wanted to shoot. every time you shot a doe you got a buck tag and another doe tag.
in the metro areas where so many people are getting their lawns done all the law places are putting down mosquito and tick control with the fertilizer so they really don't have that much of an issue with ticks on their 5-10 acer lots.

ticks being almost un-heard of in southern WI was a product of agriculture DDT wiped them out int the 50s , 60s and they had to come back in.

unlike norther WI there is very little in the south that wasn't planted and sprayed

I pulled a somewhat bloated dog tick.out of my shoulder last night in bed.

I just pulled this lightly bloated dog tick out of Diane's ear.




It came out with a large piece of skin it was attached to.

We both took some Tony's Treasure Tablets. They are made for pigeons, but contain the same dosage of doxycycline used to treat lyme disease, as a preventive dose in humans.

Keith