Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Tick Removal Tools any good?

After dodging them all year, one finally got me today! Pulled most of it out with the hemostats I use on the dogs, but was wondering if any of those special tools/gizmos work as advertised?

doesnt really matter, actually about impossible to get all the mouth parts out, just pull the SOB off, keep the site clean and watch for infection.

Yep.

Sometimes (not always) touching the rear of the tick with the head of a just-blown-out match with make them back out--but not always.

There was a theory going around years ago that grabbing a tick with tweezers and twisting, rather than pulling, would result in the jaws "unscrewing." A friend wondered whether ticks south of the equator required an opposite twist from northern hemisphere ticks....

They do, in fact. The problem is what to do when you're directly on the equator???

I guess just pull straight and hope.

When you're buddy wakes you up in hunting camp because he can feel a tick in his back, a lighter works well to get the tick to back out and burn his back hair.

Put a dab of Watkin's Salve on the little bastid and WAIT,...he'll back out looking for air.

In a pinch, #2 diesel works pretty well.

ANY of the basic insecticidal essential oils,...e.g. Rosemary, White Thyme, Cinnamon, Peppermint have and do work well on my dogs, as does Watkins salve and WD40,...They LET go,..and fall off.

Some patience goes long way.

Tick parts remaining in the wound ? ...IODINE, Peroxide, Bleach, Bluestone, Gentian Violet,.....

GTC

Bruce,

Yes, the equator simplifies everything. Just pull straight back and parts from both sides of the tick's "mouth" will remain in the skin, just about equally.

Which is related to the "how do you tell a level-headed Norwegian" joke: The snoose drips equally from both sides of the mouth.

Growing up and working in east Texas and south Texas, our method was a dab of Campho-Phenique. They let go and back out pretty quickly, or they let go and die, then you can pull them out intact.

I guess I deserved that.

+1 on the Campho-Phenique. They can't seem to back out fast enough. Easiest method I've found.

Thanks for the input. Going to try that Campho-Phenique as it looks like a long time before snow is coming to blanket my deer hunting area.

Disk grinder. Does not have to be a big one - 4-1/2" with about 80 grit disk will do

In my youth I tried rubbing alcohol then did not wait long enough when I tried a match. Took a while for dog to trust me after!

If you're from Mass. and it's a deer tick, you better watch out for Lyme Disease or Babesiosis. The rule of thumb isn't to wait for a bruise or ring around the area, but to just take two rounds of Doxycycline on day one, and your good to go. The Lyme test sucks, it takes a long time and is wrong most of the time.

As far as pulling them out, I just pull'em out. They used to say is to flip it over on it's back and push it out.

Just read the Watkins Salve label,... Camphor

....betting that Tiger Balm will be in the same league.

We have had a VERY bad year here for those damned things, lotsa' opportunities to try whatever's handy, as it were.

Good thread !

GTC

Would Flexall 454 give a tick a bad feeling?

Flexall (7% menthol) and Maximum Strength Flexall (16% menthol) are unique aloe vera gel formulas with natural oils (eucalyptus, peppermint, thyme) and vitamin E. Maximum Strength Flexall Plus contains three active ingredients (16% menthol, 10% methyl salicylate, 3.1% camphor) in the same vitamin E-enriched aloe vera ..

Hell yes !
...more than willing to bet that it will

Tick key actually works well if the little demons aren't tiny. Follow up with Neosporin.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Tick-Key/1406980.uts

I got a little gizmo called Ticked Off several years ago...worked so well I bought a doze and gave them to guys I hunt with. It's like a little plastic measuring spoon with a narrow "v" slot in the end. Did a little research and a university (in Kentucky, I believe) did a study that found that particular one the most effective tick removal tool of all they studied.

I would echo the recommendations of those who say take some Doxycycline (200 mg) the day you find the tick. FIL got Lyme, nothing to mess with.

Just light a butane torch and put the flame on them.They back right up and you kill the germs in one shot.

My wife's an RN, found a technique for tick removal on CDC website that really works.

She removed one from me, basically by taking a Q tip and manipulating the tick in a circle for 20 seconds or so. Tick backed out, completely intact, no head - no sore.

Works well & it's cheap.

Its not that the test is wrong per-say.....the bacteria unlike most prefers fluids like the synovial fluid in joints and cerebral spinal fluid and it can take up to six months before the bacteria load gets high enough to spill over into the blood where the blood test gets it. from what i understand its getting more and more common to confirm it via either a spinal tap or pulling some fluid out of the knee as by the time a blood test is positive permanent damage to the joints or brain can be done. and the rash doesnt show up in somewhere around 20-30% of cases depending on where your at as there seems to be some variability in the bug....

When we lived upriver from Lewiston, Idaho, we had one dog which was a tick magnet. When the spaniel had two or three ticks, this dog would have forty or fifty. I tried all sorts of techniques and solutions and nothing worked real well. Finally some old-timer told me the best way to remove a tick is to pinch the tick with your thumb and fore finger then pull it off immediately. He said pinching the tick causes it to turn loose very briefly. If you didn't pull it off immediately, it would re-grip and wouldn't come off without leaving parts behind so you had to leave that one and come back to it in a few minutes. It works! With the initial pinch, the tick can be removed with no pulling at all but wait a half second, and all bets are off.
I have read a bunch of times that pinching the tick is a bad idea because it may cause the tick to inject more saliva. Guess what? Ms. Tick is already doing so.
As I said, this one dog seemed to be a banguet on the paw for every tick in the county and I plucked scores of ticks from her hide. Strangely, she seemed largely unaffected by the ticks. In contrast, a little sheltie we had years later was nearly killed by a single tick. One day, she started having trouble walking with her hind legs seeming to lose co-ordination. Within a half day she was stumbling on all four. By about 24 hours after the appearance of symptoms, she was unable to walk at all but could crawl on her belly. Another three hours or so and she couldn't move her legs at all and in another hour her head dropped and she could do nothing but roll her eyes. I had checked her over but checked again and found a tick behind her left ear. I removed the tick and cleaned the area with alchohol and she recovered at about the same rate as she had gone down. Next morning she could crawl, by afternoon she was stumbling around, and by the next day she was a li9ttle unco-ordinated in her hindquarters. Another day and she was back to normal. I found this to be a bit astounding since I had been removing ticks from dogs for years and had never seen this happen before. Don't know what makes one tick different than another but this sort of paralysis can also occur in people, apparently, so ticks can be serious stuff, Lyme disease notwithstanding. GD

what you saw with your dog isnt a disease, some ticks have a neurotoxin in their saliva, more than likely would have been a Rocky Mountain wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni) given your in Idaho. the American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis) found mostly east of the Mississippi will also do it. the RM wood tick is a nasty lil phugger, on top of sometimes having the neurotoxin they also carry Rocky Mountain Spotted fever, Colorado tick fever and tularaemia(rabbit fever, why some are touchy bout eating rabbits)

Yeah, I knew it was from a neurotoxin but don't understand why some ticks seem to produce this while most do not. Just glad that most don't. All of the ticks I've had to deal with have been of the Rocky Mountain variety; that being where I have spent most of my life.
I recall a spring bear hunt up on the North Fork of the Clearwater River. This was a large burned area and the sheer number of ticks had to be experienced to appreciate it. The dog was weighed down pretty good with them by the time we got home and my wife and I had a dozen in our sleeping bags. Neither of us had any attached though and I was pretty happy about that!
Didn't get a bear but I made a great shot on a ground squirrel at 100 yds, offhand, with a H&R 45/70 (500 grain cast bullet). GD

Actually, I think any kind of grease or thick oil will suffocate ticks. Vaseline, vegetable shortening, machine grease......

I read about this but have only tried it once, and it worked. Saturate a cotton ball in liquid soap and place over the tick. In about 30 seconds the tick will back out into the cotton ball. Like I said, it worked the only time that I tried it. miles

all of them have it but its not quite the same as a snake bite....from what we understand it has to be a gravid female which means the larva and nymph stages as well as males can feed and never release enough toxin to matter. and even with gravid females it usually takes them feeding for atleast 5 days before enough toxin passes into the host to cause problems. which is probably why the immature and males never cause problems, they never feed for that long before dropping off....

The best dog in the world is my friend's husky/shepherd/? mix. Has some dark spots on her skin, tongue, etc. Years ago, my friend told about checking her for ticks after a hike. Found one on her belly, in the deep, thick fur, all swollen up like it had been feeding for awhile. Got her to lay down and roll over, and grabbed the tick with some tweezers. The dog yelped and jumped up. "I gave my dog a purple nurple!"

My wife is my tick removal tool. Pair of tweezers, a small needle, magnifying glass, shes good to go.

Permethrin is said to be a good deterrent.



Of course being a manly man , mine is still in its original container!.......... And I'm starting my second battle with Lyme.

My dad used campho phonik, kerosene, and dish soap at various times in a small bottle that was inverted over the tick on the skin and held there until the tick releases. Ticks, like most insects, breath thru spirakles in their body, not lungs like we do. The various heavy liquids cut off their air and the let go believing that they will not drown. They release their mouth parts when they do but I have heard it said that they regrugitate their stomach contents when they release.

I'm not an ento. guy and don't play one on TV.

i went through a second round of it this summer first was 4 years ago and after that became damn paranoid about the phuggin vampires.....so paranoid I'm pretty sure I didnt get another bite and the chit this summer was because i didn't actually kill off the first round and i was on e of the lucky 15% or so that has it flare back up.....

http://theticknipper.com/ Plastic side cutter with very fine tip. After removal follow up with Merthiolate because it penetrates to skin and bite site better than cream antibiotic.

I'm paranoid about ticks as I was the first recorded person with Rocky Mountain tick fever in California 60 years ago. I've since learned that an ounce of prevention is the best way to go. My Daughters and Granddaughters and I use REPEL. Spray out clothes down with it especially during Turkey season and in 10 years have not had an issue with ticks.

I spend most every spring day chasing turkeys, and can vouch for the effectiveness of the Sawyer Tick spray. Worried about odor so I didn't spray my bow hunting clothes, and why a tick got me.
Going forward screw it, I'm treating all my hunting clothes until we get snow cover!

I'll second the effectiveness of the "tick key" as mentioned in an earlier post.

Geno

I've used the Tick Twister for years since I saw a doctor in the ER use one a patient. Looks like a miniature cupped utility bar. Usually comes in a 2-pk with 2 different sizes. Slide the end under the tick body and gently twist out. Easy to see what you removed and dispose of it. Great for dogs with longer coats too because of the angle of the tool.

Tick Twister

I've just pulled them off my whole life and not worried about it. When I was about 30 though I developed a phobia about ticks. My 85 year old grandmother came to me one night because she had a tick on her rear end she couldn't reach and wanted me to pull it off. I begged and pleaded with her to not have to but she insisted. So I did. It was horrible.

Finger nails. That's why the Good Lord put them there.

I'm coming off a near-zero-tick year. The little buggers were nearly non-existent at my place. However, most years they range from bad to horrible. I can thank the cold winter for that. In past years, I've gotten out of the car in late June, walked once around the house to inspect it for damage after being away for a week and found 50 ticks on my legs by the time I got back to the front porch.

I tried a lot of things. The worst thing you want to do is to kill it on your skin. The absolute worst infection I ever got was from one on my arm that I used alcohol on. The tick threw up under my skin as he died and set loose something that produced a swollen arm and a 6 inch ring rash before I could get to a doctor. I was figuring Lyme Disease for sure. The doc said Lyme was the least of my worries. Amen.

Finger nails and vigilance-- that is the best way to go. The big trick is to catch them before they dig in. That makes it much easier. Most ticks keep climbing until they find my scalp. I'm tall, so they've got a long trek. If I can intercept them on the way, they come right off. Otherwise, I use a well-manicured fingernail to lift them off the skin and keep an empty drink can by the bed for when I do not want to get up and throw them in the toilet.

Snow cover doesn't help around here. You can still get covered walking through thick brush...also, they'll be crawling on you if you spend much time in a tree stand.

We don't seem to have as many as we did prior to last winter which gave us an extended period of really cold weather. We never used to have any in Northern NY, then a few started to show up in the late '80's, early '90's.

Know I got mine bird hunting with a friend.
Never get any on the hardwood ridges I usually bow hunt, and once into December they really aren't active where I hunt in the snow (I hope we get some for tracking).

Here's what I know from various credible medical resources gathered over the years:

1. Pulling a tick out with tweezers, fingernails, etc, as soon as you see it is the most reliable method with the fewest complications.

2. The mouth parts left behind when you pull out a tick is not its head, and will work out of your skin in a few hours to a few days, usually with no ill effects.

2. Applying noxious substances to the tick to make it back out is popular among folk-healing advocates, but actually increases the risk of transmitting infection. The tick can and usually does regurgitate saliva and stomach contents into your skin in response to the noxious stimulant, greatly increasing the risk of infection.

But go ahead and do what you uncle/dad/neighbor advises if that makes you feel better.