My mare has ticks - advice please?!

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roz84

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Hi my mare has one of these manky little ******s embedded in her face right now, I shall remove it with tweezers tomorrow! Does anyone have any specific recommendations as to what I should do to keep them off/ get rid of them? We have lots of deer where we live so they are going to be difficult to avoid I feel!
 
I have only ever had to remove them from dogs, but it is important to get the head which embeds into the skin. I believe there are special tick removers, but I manage to get them with twesers using ones with slanted end so I can get really close to skin without pulling on skin.

I seem to have heard that deer ticks can carry a diesease, but not sure if that is just to affect humans. If you are not sure check with your vet.
 
Adopter said:
I have only ever had to remove them from dogs, but it is important to get the head which embeds into the skin. I believe there are special tick removers, but I manage to get them with twesers using ones with slanted end so I can get really close to skin without pulling on skin.

I seem to have heard that deer ticks can carry a diesease, but not sure if that is just to affect humans. If you are not sure check with your vet.
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Yes, other species..sheep, cattle etc and humans also get Lyme disease plus other nasty bacterial infections from tick bites. Don't know what you use to keep them away from your horse though. :( I've had Lyme disease and it's pretty nasty.
 
Ticks, I hate them,the cat has one just now. we are on a high risk area for the damn things.
One of the latest ideas, is to get a cotton wool pad, soak it in hand wash soap, hold it against the tick for a minute or so. Its is supposed to come out cleanly.
or smother it in Vaseline, ditto.
Please consider also the use the Tick twisters, available from the vet,
I believe Barrier Health make a spray.
There should be lots of threads to search for on here too.
 
Don't try to smother the tick in anything, it will regurgitate it's stomach contents, full of nasties, back into the horse/human/dog etc. The best way to deal with a tick is to remove it straight away, tick removers make light work of this and don't squeeze the body of the tick.
 
My daughters horse had one on his nose today so I thought I'd try the "liquid soap" method, well I was astonished that it actually does work! Just put a decent amount of liquid soap on a cotton wool pad and cover tick for approx 15-20 seconds and it just comes straight off! Couldn't be simpler :-)
 
Cooper's Spot On is brilliant for getting rid of ticks and keeping them off. Pour 10ml along the spine from wither to tail, miss out the saddle area if the mare is in work, and within 3 days the ticks will be gone. It's not licenced for horses but is routinely used by my vets for external parasites on equines.
 
lhotse said:
Don't try to smother the tick in anything, it will regurgitate it's stomach contents, full of nasties, back into the horse/human/dog etc. The best way to deal with a tick is to remove it straight away, tick removers make light work of this and don't squeeze the body of the tick.
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^^^^This^^^^^^ We get a lot here. Please get a tick remover from the vets. They are a little fork that goes over the body (they come in a little bag with three sizes the trade name is 'O tom'); you then rotate and remove the tick whole complete with the head and hooks. Ticks do 'puke' back into the bloodstream. Piroplasmosis, Lyme's, tick borne encephalitis etc It's not worth the risk. We almost lost a dog to tick fever (babesia) even though he was vaccinated.
 
Ditto the advice so far - do use a proper tick remover. I use Deet in the summer on my horses but have not found anything full proof against ticks - other than environment.

I have one field I don't use in summer as there is bracken on the margins and some low scrubby trees. It if fine for winter grazing.

I would avoid, bracken, low branches, long grass and scrub areas for summer grazing to reduce the risk. If you have these plants and can top or strim them it will reduce the risk.
 
mine live in a field which is basically a clearing in the forest at the bottom of the moors. The field is alive with ticks! I use Butox Swish. Cost about £17 for 250ml. You only need 30ml to treat ticks and flies etc for 8 weeks :)
 
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