Now I’ve written about some serious creepy crawlies on here before. From the humble mosquitoes that bite by the swarm, to the bed bugs that hideaway in your furniture. However, there’s another heavy-duty parasite out there that we don’t cover often. And that’s the “humble” tick. And with Florida’s weather getting warmer by the year, this problem isn’t going anywhere. In fact, you can expect it to get worse. That’s why today we’ll be talking about Florida tick control. And on top of that, we’ll discuss some of the potential diseases they may infect you with.
Florida Tick Control: Overview
Being bitten by any parasite is unpleasant. However, most of the time you won’t have a real issue. The smaller, more common bugs you run into will usually leave you with some serious itching at worse. Think of a mosquito bite or an ant sting. These types of bites usually don’t cause any serious trouble. Ticks on the other hand carry many bloodborne diseases, and they range from medium severity to quite serious. So let’s start by discussing some of their biting habits.
To begin, ticks have a pretty disgusting behavior centered around their feeding. They don’t just take their bloodmeal and scamper or fly away quickly. Instead, they like to set up shop and really dig in when they get on your body. They bite, shove their ENTIRE head inside of you, and remain for several days. And even though this is a pretty invasive feeding method, you won’t always know it’s happening. Tick bites are painless and usually less itchy than even a fire ant sting. As the tick feeds, however, it becomes quite a bit more noticeable. They go from about the size of a speck of dirt to gigantic, engorged, and frankly horrifying lumps attached to your body.
Where they bite
When a tick feeds, it prefers a moist, warm area. That goes double for hairy spots! So as you can imagine, armpits, behind the ears, groins, and scalps are all favorite locations for the tick. And as I mentioned above, they are not quick feeders. The tick will usually hang on from anywhere from two days to up to two weeks! And when they’re full they simply detach, fall off, and run away; engorged with your blood.
Identifying a tick
There are many known species of ticks in Florida. Because of this, they can be hard to identify. These bugs differ in appearance when it comes to size, gender, age, and whether or not they’ve recently eaten. Color can help but is unreliable. And after feeding, identification becomes even more of a challenge as their color and size greatly change. As a rule, though, the females are larger than the males. And the “scutum”, or the plate-like structure on their backs, is always smaller on females but covers most of the male’s body. If you get bitten by a tick, the best thing to do is to grab it and take it to be identified. The two most common ticks are the American Dog tick and the deer tick.
The dog dicks are dark brown with whitish or yellowish markings on their backs. On females, the markings cover half the body while the males have the pattern throughout. However, these spots are difficult to see on engorged ticks, and young ticks won’t have them at all.
Deer ticks are reddish-brown with a black head, legs, and scutum. The adults have no markings on their bodies, and once again- when engorged, they’re much harder to identify.
Florida Tick Control- The Diseases
As I mentioned above, ticks carry some real heavy-duty diseases compared to some other parasites. So we’ll cover a few of the most common, dangerous, and downright bizarre. And we’ll start with the most common, of course.
Lyme Disease
As you might guess, this is the most common of all tick diseases. Lyme is a potentially serious bacterial infection caused by bacteria carried by the tick. It can be treated with antibiotics, thankfully, but is also transmittable to both humans and animals. Fever and other symptoms can develop if left untreated, and can eventually lead to chronic fatigue, joint swelling, or neurological damage.
Powassan encephalitis
Any kind of encephalitis is horrifying, quite frankly, as it has to do with swelling of the brain. This variant is caused by the Powassan virus. And as of this writing, there are no vaccines or medications that can be used to treat or prevent it. People with severe cases need to be hospitalized. And some of the symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, amnesia, and difficulty speaking.
Alpha-gal Syndrome
Also known as red meat or tick bite allergy, this is a serious, life-threatening allergic reaction. And you’ll pretty much never know you have it until it breaks out. The symptoms occur after people eat red meat, and include drops in blood pressure, severe stomach pain, shortness of breath, and potentially death. So yes, a bite from the wrong tick can mean no more red meat…ever!
Florida Tick Control Tips
Now, when it comes to Florida tick control some of the best practices you can adopt are simple tidiness around the yard. For one, remove excess leaf litter that would provide places for ticks to cool down and hide out. And clear tall grasses and brush around your homes and the edge of your lawns.
Also, consider placing at least three feet of wood chips or gravel between your lawn and wooded areas near your home. This will keep ticks from migrating closer to your house. And it goes without saying, mow your lawn and keep your grass short! Long grass is one of a tick’s preferred hiding spots. And finally, remove any old furniture, mattresses, or other trash from around your yard. These places can hold all sorts of pests. Ticks, bed bugs, termites, or larger animals such as snakes and raccoons!
And when it comes to an honest to god infestation, be quick to contact a natural pest control specialist. There’s nothing a layman can do once a bug population is established in the home that isn’t risky. Leave it to the people with proper equipment and training.
