Yet Another Tick Borne Disease

[MissS]

There is a new tick-borne condition called babesiosis that attacks red blood cells and can be fatal.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/another-tick ... 52074.html

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/babesiosis/disease.html

[karstopography]

Looks like one that hits New England particularily bad. The Tick population can be almost unbelievably bad in Eastern Massachusetts, I’ve unfortunately experienced that first hand.

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/babesiosi ... index.html

[Sue_CT]

Actually not that new, we have been treating it for probably 10 years, although it hasn't been very common. Its a nasty one.

[brownrexx]

I HATE ticks and since we have a cabin in Western PA that we visit quite often, I am always wary of them. Apparently 50% of deer ticks in PA carry Lyme disease. I found a tick on my scalp about 6 weeks ago and it could have been there up to 3 days since I don't know exactly when it got there. I was so worried that I had the doctor order a Lyme test which fortunately came back negative.

Now I have discovered a free tick testing site for PA residents. I found a Dog Tick on me 3 weeks ago and I put it in a plastic bag and mailed it to them. They identified the tick, said it was a male and checked it for 4 pathogens, all negative.

Here is the site. It's interesting.

https://www.ticklab.org/

[worth1]

Not trying to one up anyone but when I lived in southeast Oklahoma in the forest I used to get literally covered in ticks.
Thousands.
With all the talk about different diseases if I were to have that happen today I would probably have a nervous breakdown.

[karstopography]

I’ve never figured out why one place has plenty of ticks and another place ticks are absent. I can’t see any correlation to deer population or other wildlife, or climate, or terrain, or amount of forest. Some places are covered in ticks, some places ticks are semi-rare, and some places ticks are all but absent or actually absent. It seems to be hard to find a tick in most of the Rocky Mountains and high deserts, at least the ones I’ve been to. Texas seems variable, some districts are more tick prone than others. I saw a tick, a Lone Star tick, for the first time in years at my place on the coast this spring, happened to be on a garden stake I was about to adjust. I smashed her blood sucking being, ticks are hard to smash. The female Lone Star ticks are pretty easy to identify. Evidently, this species isn’t a lyme disease vector.

[worth1]

Cattle seems to harbor them.

[Shule]

[mention]karstopography[/mention]
Around here, ticks are in areas where you find deer, livestock, and stuff. I've never gotten a tick on me in the city limits, though, but it's normal to get maybe one tick when I go overnight camping in an area with hills, sagebrush, and deer. I see ticks on people's dogs outside the city limits. I imagine they're on coyotes, gophers, cows, horses, and goats, too.

But yeah, I've seen a lot more ticks in Kentucky/Indiana than Idaho! They've got plenty of deer, opossums, and raccoons there, but I don't know what the tick hosts usually are.

[worth1]

Opossums eat ticks.
Ticks will get on anything with blood including snakes.

[rxkeith]

ticks are present throughout the U.P., usually i will find a few on the dog when i am loving on her.
i give her a rub down with my hands, and any bumps get looked at. we will find one on ourselves
once in awhile. usually, i will feel it crawling before it can latch on. not too worried about catching
anything. lyme isn't a big concern in the keweenaw. the western U.P. bordering wisconsin lyme is more
prevalent.
a benefit of having chickens is they eat anything they see crawling. i can't imagine there are many ticks
around this old farm house.
anyone going to isle royale national park should check themselves for ticks when camping. i read that the
moose on the island carry so many ticks that in bad years they are weakened by the blood loss.


keith

[brownrexx]

The ticks that have been 50% positive for Lyme disease in PA are Deer Ticks which are now know as Black Legged Ticks. They do get on to deer regularly but I think that the ticks that get on dogs are mostly American dog Ticks and they don't usually carry Lyme.

Ticks looking for a host usually hang onto the stems of tall grasses and when a host animal passes by they grab onto them.

Deer ticks worry me the most because they are so small and easy to overlook. They are the size of a poppy seed.

Check out this chart. You can click on your state and see the infection rates.

https://www.ticklab.org/statistics