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How do you kill ticks??

post #1 of 26
6/4/08 at 1:13am
Thread Starter 
Alright this may sound dumb, but we were at my biological fathers farm and we all got covered in ticks, including the dog, this was last sunday! Like 8 days ago! I keep finding more or Midnight (my shorky) but the problem is that everytime I send them down the drain they come right back up!! AHHH!! Im afraid of ticks, dont know why but I am, and I need to kill them! NOW!! Anyone know?? Anyone at all?? Please!!
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post #2 of 26
6/4/08 at 1:47am
Try flushing them.
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post #3 of 26
6/4/08 at 4:42am
If you rinse them down the drain or flush them, they will just crawl back up. I pop their heads off. You can do it with tweezers, pliers, or even your fingers if you're not too squeamish.
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post #4 of 26
6/4/08 at 5:22am
When we went thru the field, any ticks we'd find on us or the dog (she rarely had them cause of the BioSpot on her), we would just pull the tick apart (in half ) and flush them.

Another way is to light a candle and drop the tick into the flame.
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post #5 of 26
6/4/08 at 7:28am
Burn them or drop them into rubbing alcohol

When removing them, don't squeeze them... use something like a credit card to scrape them out of the skin, then pick them up with tweezers or something and stick them in a flame
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post #6 of 26
6/4/08 at 7:46am
here in oklahoma, we always burn the little mofos!! we either light match sticks, blow them out and touch them to the tick IMMEDIATELY (this the one of the best ways to get them off you if theyre embedded on you but you HAVE TO HOLD STILL HAHA) or you can heat your the end tweezers and do the same thing. just remember to sanitize them with alcohol! this method DOES remove the head of the tick!

i learned to hold VERY still as a kid thanks to this method LOL. when i was 4, my cousin got rocky mountain spotted fever after a tick was removed but the head stayed in.

you can do this on your pets if you can get someone to hold it or it will hold still. just be careful!! (our dogs actually will hold still but i KNOW my cats wont. ive had to remove a few ticks off them)


if you find a tick just crawling, you can paint it with nail polish on paper and it will suffocate immediately!!! i like to watch the little buggers die. normally im not this morbid, but they spread so much disease and plus they almost killed my cousin when i was a kid and i had to watch her suffer so i feel its karma haha
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post #7 of 26
6/4/08 at 8:45am
My family did something similar to the above post. Ticks were removed. Then burned with matches. Worked every time.
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post #8 of 26
6/4/08 at 11:45am
Thread Starter 
Well I ended up getting the ticks off, one of them left his head in my dog and I had to get the tweezers and pull it out, my poor puppy was so scared!! Now I have to find something to make the ticks never get on him again! Or me for that matter! I hate ticks!!

The worst part is when they were flushed and put down the sink they came right back up! Last night I sent the one down the sink with a gallon of bleach, and vinegar, godd I hope that killed the icky thing!!! It comes up my sink and Im making a bon fire!!
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post #9 of 26
6/4/08 at 2:00pm
Frontline Plus and Advantage will help with ticks - read the label. We use BioSpot on the dog - works on fleas, ticks and mosequitos.
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post #10 of 26
6/4/08 at 4:35pm
When we lived on the farm, we'd have to "tick check" the dogs every time we took them out for a walk. We kept a bottle of soapy water by the door and when we found them on the dogs, we'd pull them off and drop them into that. The soap left the bottle too slippery for them to crawl out of and they would drown. If we didn't have the soap water, we'd just bust them in half by squeezing them in between our fingernails. They are too thick to squeeze with bare fingers.

The big lesson with ticks and dogs is that you want to find them before they start to burrow into their skin, as it really hurts to remove them. And we know we have lyme disease in our area because I got it one time.
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post #11 of 26
6/5/08 at 5:30am
Sometimes the world is a small place. I received this e-mail last night after I posted my previous response. I had the soap part right:

A School Nurse has written the info below -- good enough to share --
And it really works!!

I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to
remove a tick. This is great, because it works in those places where it's
sometimes difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of
a head full of dark hair, etc.

Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with
the soap-soaked cotton ball and let it stay on the repulsive insect for a
few seconds (15-20), after which the tick will come out on its own and be
stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique has worked
every time I've used it (and that was frequently), and it's much less
traumatic for the patient and easier for me.

Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be
damaging in any way. I even had my doctor's wife call me for advice because
she had one stuck to her back and she couldn't reach it with tweezers. She
used this method and immediately called me back to say, 'It worked!'

Please pass on....... everyone needs this helpful hint.
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post #12 of 26
6/5/08 at 6:37am
My daughter and I both have chronic Lyme disease. We used to hike a lot and we got bitten and never realized what the aftereffects would be. So we are on a long course of medicine and it is horrible.
Not everyone gets the bullseye rash so if anyone starts feeling bad go to the doctor and tell him about what you experienced.
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post #13 of 26
6/5/08 at 9:34am
Ticks are what killed my Alley by spreading their disease (Frontline treatment isn't always enough).

I would burn the ticks after removal, or drown them in rubbing alcohol or bleach. Nasty, nasty creatures.
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post #14 of 26
6/5/08 at 7:54pm
After removal I put them inside of a ziploc bag and gave them the proverbial kick to the curb! Take that you little vermin!

We had the Brown Dog Tick for over a year. It was the most horrible battle. They are the only type of tick that literally INFEST the home. Talk about not being able to relax in your own house.. YUCK!
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post #15 of 26
6/5/08 at 8:16pm
I've always heard that you should NOT do anything to kill or irritate the tick before pulling it off, because that makes them more likely to trasmit diseases.

I keep meaning to hunt down some Kelly forceps like we use at work to get the buggers off with. Tweezers are a pain, they never seem to get a good hold the first try.

I have an old pill bottle I use for ticks, actually. Put a little alcohol in it, drop the tick in, put the lid on, and keep it for awhile in case any signs of illness crop up. But then I'm a bit paranoid about those things.
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post #16 of 26
6/5/08 at 8:54pm
Thread Starter 
I am so glad there are people out there who are as paranoid as me!! The ticks crawling out of the sink freaked me out! I hate them, I hate the way they look, I hate the way it feels when its crawling on you, I hate the little marks they leave where they bit you and most of all I just hate them! I bought some new stuff they had Hearts Ultra gaurd flea tick mosquito stuff! It was the only thing they had at the store for small dogs! GRR! All the cheap stuff was for big dogs! Didn't want a risk it, spent the 20 bucks!
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post #17 of 26
6/6/08 at 8:15pm
If you don't have anything else available (ie - outside at the time) you can easily squish ticks between a couple of rocks or with your shoe against a rock.

The best way to keep them off you is to stay out from under trees, out of tall grass, and even fields where cattle would have attracted them.
Putting your hair back and wearing a hat can help some if you'll be under trees. Always check clothing or just completely change when you get inside. Have someone check your hair and always check your children's hair.
Spraying your pant legs down with repellent does help.

It may help - but along with checking the dogs, what about a quick brush down before going inside to catch loose ticks?

Lyme isn't the only thing ticks can carry though. Depending on area and type of tick there can be other types of "fever" (bacteria).

Quote:
Originally Posted by CC12 View Post
My daughter and I both have chronic Lyme disease. We used to hike a lot and we got bitten and never realized what the aftereffects would be. So we are on a long course of medicine and it is horrible.
Not everyone gets the bullseye rash so if anyone starts feeling bad go to the doctor and tell him about what you experienced.
The dysautonomia forum I'm a member of has at least two members that have it from chronic Lyme. Dysautonomia is basically where your autonomic nervous system does not function how it should -from blood pressure and heart rate to digestion (and lots in between)... sort of considered neurological problems. Look it up, if you haven't read or heard about it already.
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post #18 of 26
6/6/08 at 8:54pm
To kill ticks on people, remove carefully with tweasers, make sure you get the head, then burn and discard. With animals, treat with Frontline to prevent this occurring. Don't let the cats lick it off. DO NOT use Biospot or anything you purchase from the large chains of grocery or pet stores. These are not as effective and some are quite dangerous, you want the products that come from your vet, esp. when you are dealing with small breeds with low body weights.
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post #19 of 26
6/7/08 at 4:54am
here in oklahoma, the ticks dont care if your inside or out. they will infest your house whether your grass is long or short. i can remember it got so bad when i was a teen (around 1994) the city would spray yards if you would call and ask because the ticks were so bad.

fortunately, its not that bad anymore, but its not that great.


i hear people talking about lyme disease but lets not forget about rocky mountain spotted fever. ticks are nasty, either way!

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rmsf/
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post #20 of 26
6/7/08 at 11:03am
^They're not that bad over here. Only people that have dogs really have issues with them infesting yards. I've never had one on me from being out in our yard, and we live next to a pasture - I've even walked through that pasture, down into the nearby canyon, and around to a pond and still didn't get a tick on me. So it varies from area to area and by season/type of winter.

Sand fleas can be a real problem, though..
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post #21 of 26
6/7/08 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BuzbyJLC10 View Post
Burn them or drop them into rubbing alcohol

When removing them, don't squeeze them... use something like a credit card to scrape them out of the skin, then pick them up with tweezers or something and stick them in a flame
Alcohol is great, kills them, i put a little on a piece of cotton and just keep it above the tick within a few seconds he dies
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post #22 of 26
6/16/08 at 9:49am
Eeeeewwww this has brought back some really bad memories of ticks!

One year our house was infested by them, our dogs were infested and we were infested! There wasn't a spot that you looked at where there wasn't a tick - from the very tiny ones to the huge enourmous fat ones! Errrrr this is making me squeemish!

The best way to get ticks and their heads out (don't leave a tick head in the skin of an animal or yourself) is like others on this forum have said... use alcohol on a cotton bud/ball and Mr. Tick will stop biting and remove himself from the skin... at this point, pick him up with tweezers and stick him in parafin or alcohol... then burn the little sucker!

Ooooohhhh it gives me such satisfaction watching them pop!
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post #23 of 26
6/16/08 at 10:15am
If the ticks are not fat with blood, its next to impossible to kill a flat tick with a rock or shoe! Easier to drop them into a fire, alcohol, or pull them apart with your fingernails.
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post #24 of 26
6/16/08 at 9:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45 View Post
If the ticks are not fat with blood, its next to impossible to kill a flat tick with a rock or shoe! Easier to drop them into a fire, alcohol, or pull them apart with your fingernails.
Then I must be extremely vicious then when it comes to squishing them! As for the other suggestions - I don't carry matches or a lighter and wouldn't want start a fire while surrounded by nothing but dried grass. Who carries alcohol everywhere? and yuck!
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post #25 of 26
6/16/08 at 10:02pm
I squish them with the flat end of a screw driver, works even if they arn't full of blood.
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post #26 of 26
6/16/08 at 10:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by courtney_ou View Post
i hear people talking about lyme disease but lets not forget about rocky mountain spotted fever.
I was diagnosed with previous exposure to Rocky Mountain Spotted fever the time I was bit by a tick and got the bulls eye rash. They treated me for lyme disease even though that result wasn't positive. Lyme goes in cycles and more often than not, the results come out negative and they treat you because you are having symptoms. That and the dead tick and the bullseye rash were a clear indicator (I brought the tick with me in a pill bottle).

I read up on RMS fever and found out that 16% of people die if not treated. I never knew that I had it so was one of the lucky 84% that survived without treatment.
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