Chigger attack! Help!

Terri is right!. Chiggers are too small to see with your eyes. You have seed ticks. They're basically baby ticks. They're typically born in July and August. You typically get a hundred from a single leaf. A local guy has his PhD in ticks (Dr Barry Engbert) He says pyrethrin is the best tick deterrent. He suggests tucking pants into socks and wearing light clothes. Get them off with a loop of masking tape sticky side out.
Don't touch leaves or branches, either, as they'll get on your clothes where you can't feel them. i prefer wearing little clothing and bare feet. I feel them when they get on my ankles. Rubbing them kills them. I also wear tape on my ankles, sticky side out, so they get stuck there. I also stick others that I find on me to the tape and get on with the tasks at hand.
Frontline and Advantix works for the dog.
Getting chickens or guinea hens will decrease the amount of ticks, too. Also discourage animals that drop ticks (like deer) from walking near the places where you go a lot. Seed ticks come from Mom ticks. If no one is dropping fully engorged mom ticks around, there won't be any seed ticks next summer. Once the cycle is broken, the number of ticks around gets manageable.
ray

Find a good realtor and move! That's what I finally had to do. Seed ticks and chiggers were so bad that I ended up with a pretty severe infection on my lower legs and belly(waistband area). Since I'm diabetic infections of the legs and feet are especially a concern. I never could use this suggestion but you might find it helpful. Surveyors cover a lot of rough land....one of them told me to wear jeans and put flea collars on the lower part of the jeans.

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My goal in life is to someday be half as great as my dog thinks I am!!

Randy, I feel your pain; been there too many times. We live in the woods too and I've tried about everything. The best plan of action I use is no matter how hot it is, if I have to go out in the bushy areas or woods to pick berries, etc., I wear long jeans, socks up over the top of the jeans and usually keep in place with rubber bands. I wear thin long sleeved shirts and a hat, and then I spray my clothing with Deep Woods Off, particularly around my ankle area.

When I come inside once I'm done, I strip the clothes off in the laundry room, throw them in the washer and immediately head to the bathtub where I draw a tub of cool water and add about 1/3rd cup of baking soda. I soak in that about 20 minutes and... PTL it really works great.

Once bitten however, there's not a lot you can do but wait it out. I have found anti-itch creams help for awhile, as do ice packs wherever the bites are. Chiggers do attack anywhere that's warm and moist or where clothing is tight (like pant waistlines, bra lines, underarms, groin area, etc.).

There are products out there you can spray on your lawns (and they DO work) where you spend most of your time, however they wash away whenever it rains. I really hate putting anything like that on the lawn especially when my pets are out there so much.

I say get a bunch of guineas and that will eliminate both types of bugs chiggers and ticks. Oh and grasshoppers and fleas and alot of other nasty bugs. We are free of chiggers and ticks and fleas because of my guineas and we use to have them really bad. So I say just get some guineas

OK, so I'm from CT and we don't have these problems up this way. But I am very concerned. I am a big NASCAR fan, and will be going to Bristol TN in two weeks for a once in a lifetime trip to watch the race. We were planning on sleeping on the ground, in a tent at a local campground. Should I be concerned with these little buggers? What can I do about them? Are they going to kill my time and make me wish I never left CT? I never even heard of Chiggers or seed ticks.

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Single male, 41 Lt. brown hair, brown eyes, 5'9" 210#, living in CT. Nobody I date seems to be interested in the farm thing. Is Ms Right out there? Oh yea, that's my Nephew in the picture with me.

Jay: If your tent has a sewn-in floor (most all do now-a-days), you'll be ok. If you're going to be sitting in a lawn chair in the grass, tho, you need to really examine yourself in the shower before going to bed to look for ticks. If you find any, you need to pull them off slowly, so the head doesn't break off under your skin. Some people use nail polish remover on a cotton ball or rubbing alcohol, but I don't think that does anything. As for chiggers, just to be sure, wear bug spray with DEET in it. You should be fine. Have fun!
- Kathy

I don't understand. I live in SC, and have heard lots of chigger stories from the locals. However, I have never had a problem with them, even though I spend much time outdoors, in tall grass and in the woods. This seems strange to me, as some posts describe them to be such vicious little creatures.

Wow, Orville! Where in SC are you? I thought those nasty little buggers were all over this state. I used to live in the Columbia, SC area (chiggers there), and now I live in the Pee Dee area (Cheraw), and there are chiggers here too. But we now have guineas that are growing up outside in their coop. We just introduced them today to the great outdoors (a hoop coop) connected to their brooder. Soon, they'll be happily munching on all the bugs out here. Maybe our 13 guineas will irradicate all the chiggers in SC (hahaha)
- Kathy

Thanks Kathy. We have ticks up here, so I'm used to them. Lyme CT where Lyme disease was first found is right around the corner from me. Believe it or not, I never heard of seed ticks or chiggers though. We do have a sewn in floor, but will be camping for several days, so maybe I'll have to spray something around the tent too. Hopefully they won't come inside into our bedding and clothing. I'm glad I was reading this though. I love to sleep outside just looking up at the stars, and if it didn't rain while I was there, I planned on doing just that. Guess I'll have to change my plans for that part of my sleeping arrangements. Thanks for the information!

Jay

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Single male, 41 Lt. brown hair, brown eyes, 5'9" 210#, living in CT. Nobody I date seems to be interested in the farm thing. Is Ms Right out there? Oh yea, that's my Nephew in the picture with me.