Mike and Janet

I am sure you will,but keep an eye on the bite,people vary,but should it be an infected tick it can take quite a while for the infection to show itself! Usually an on going itch will alert you.You do seem to have less of them in Hungary,you can end up with two or three here just weeding the garden,perhaps it has to do with the lack of fence's here and that the deer tend to come very close to your garden helping spread the little devils !

Andy.K

Hi Everyone, first post. Been reading this with interest as we are going to be bringing our dog over for the summer holiday. She had a sheep tick at home and I removed it by immersing the tick in alcohol ( whisky, meths, palinka) for about a minute and it just drops of after a day. Old farm trick.

Rural Hungary

I was always told not to use alcohol, vaseline etc as they can provoke the tick to increase it's saliva production or in fact vomit into the animal thus, increasing the chance of infection.
Yuck, I feel ill just thinking about it. Thankfully 3 weekly doses of front line and stronghold seem to be keeping them at bay with our only problem now being ear mites!
Again, for some reason, these are in abundance this year and proving a nightmare to get rid of. Two different vets, three treatments and still they persist. We have even cleaned the ears with hydrogen peroxide but to no avail, their poor ears are red raw with rubbing and scratching - any advice???

Pollypaprika

To bring relief to the inflammation you could try offering peppermint essential oil, if your furries seem to like it, then mix a few drops in an aloe vera gel and apply on the inside of the ears. Peppermint will be 'cooling'. Other essential oils good for ticks, fleas, mites etc are rosewood and lavender. Peppermint and lavender are common and cheap...I have seen them on sale here. Good Luck, its horrid to see animals in any kind of distress. Ellie scratched her cornea this week so it was vet trips all round. She is fine now though.

Andy.K

I think I'll visit the vets and check it out before we come over. I'll post his recommendations.

Rural Hungary

Thanks for that, I have an Aloe Vera plant and never thought to use it. The ears are now a bit cooler though still causing problems so it looks like another visit to the vet. Is the peppermint oil just for cooling or will it prevent mite problems?

Pollypaprika

Peppermint oil is more for cooling but does have medicinal property. The rosewood oil can be used to prevent ticks. Just make sure it does not go on the fur and always see if your animal 'likes' it first. Offer them the smell, if they run a mile then they don't like it :-)

Rural Hungary

What is going on this year! I have never came across so many ticks, the cats, the dog, the children - even my son who rarely ventures into he garden let alone long grass had one.
That said, I was quite excited as it would give us a chance to use the lyme disease testing kit as recommended by Paul (I think it was Paul). Not so, I should have read the instructions first as I would have discovered that it's the tick you test and not the human - by the time we did discover this, said tick had been flushed down the loo!

Pollypaprika

ű

They seem bigger too. I groom our little dog quite a few times day now, last year I would have difficulty finding them but this year they just wander around like they have all the time in the world..which of course they don't as soon as I clock one on her.

fidobsa

Everything has gone mad this year. My weeds were all cut down last autumn but in places the grass is now 5 feet high and there are already ragweed plants a foot high. I suppose all this lush greenery is the perfect habitat for all kinds of pests.

Pollypaprika

I agree, everything appears to be super charged....apart from my veggie patch. !!

judybaby

The weeds on veggie patch are doing better than the veggies this year!!

What is this testing kit Rural?