Ticks in Missouri?

Well Mwstlf23, I guess Missouri is looking good now. Ticks? Everywhere. Tornados? Everywhere. Live life and live it well, for tomorrow is up to the Lord. When ya do jump for Misery, don't look behind ya to see how far ya just jumped. Because you might miss the mark on the next jump. Just a bit o' advice. Worthless to some, gold to others.

__________________
We have now officially entered the twilight zone.

DD won't come up to the farm as often as we'd like because she got a tick in her foundation garment and it skeeved her out so bad!

I've been researching plants that will deter the little blighters: pennyroyal, stuff like that. In my dreams, I have fields and fields of the stuff...

In reality, we check ourselves and each other for the little biters. And we make sure that no one has any bull's-eye bites especially. As mentioned above, lyme disease is nothing to mess with.

BTW, speaking of lyme: I heard that there is a lyme vaccine for dogs. True? If so, why not for humans?

Pony!

South Central MO in the summers, too. TICK SEASON...well, actually, there are ticks here in the winter, but they move slower. :haha:

Yes, the ticks crawl up the trees, down the branches to the leaf tips and wait for you to walk by. THEN they parachute onto you.

Yes to clothing choices, repellent, tick poison granules in the yard, guinneas, and nuclear bombs, not wait...not that last one. I just REALLY hate ticks.

The Frontline spray helps on the dogs, but if you check them, you will find the ticks that haven't had time to die yet, and if the dog comes in the house and the tick crawls off the dog....you get the picture.

Actually, my home in South Central Texas has no ticks. The fire ants ate them.

__________________
Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

We will be moving to Missouri in about 15-20 months but after reading all these posts I think I might just put up with the smog and traffic!! I hate bugs!!! I don't mind rats or snakes or even scorpions. I hate spiders and ticks and what in the world is a chigger??? We were on vacation last year in Missouri but had no problems with ticks, did miss tick season? Is there such a thing? I know this sounds like a crybaby city girl rant, but just the thought of the little buggers is making me itch!! Is there an area where they are worse?
Thanks
Danielle

Ticks out here in MO are rather bad this year, as it was a mild winter, we have a guy come and spray the house, front, back yard and dog yard once a year, and that really helps, we also have our neighbors guineas that come around twice a day and they do a good job on the ones in the grass, but yep they do jump from trees, had two of them on my neck the other day just from walking under a tree. I started my dogs on garlic early this year, and they don't have them near as bad so far!!!! Chiggers are out, I have already had three bites from them, when we first moved here the ticks and other bugs would just gross me out, but now its something we got used to.

See the following link for chiggers. The pictures are gross, but remember the chigger itself is so small you can't see it. Ugh.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2100.html

You must do the tick checks as advised above. One of my friends had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and almost died. Was hospitalized for weeks. Her fever got so high that it cooked some parts of her brain, and she has problems with her hormones now.

__________________
Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

http://www.lymeinfo.net/vaccine.html

Apparently there WAS one but they pulled it off the market for some reason. The hot shot infectious diseases doctor that saw my husband for his "Lyme" said that the disease in Missouri is NOT the same as the Lyme disease in the rest of the country. The symptoms are the same, and it is passed by a tick, but the actual microorganism is different and produces a different immunological response, but that there hasn't been enough demand- so they haven't actually identified the disease organism yet.

So, I don't think a vaccine for Lyme would help against this pseudo-Lyme that we have in MO. Even if there were one available.