aaaargh, this evening I pulled 2 ticks off me. One on my chest and one on my back. Tiny, not engorged. Stripped myself nekkid and checked everywhere else. Usually they say check your legs… I had spent the day outside, mucking, brushing one horse, tossing hay to all. Did not wander in any high grass areas. The gelding has a hay hoop and when I load it I am holding two or three flakes against my chest. Is it possible they jumped on me from that?
Yes it is entirely possible:).
DH is a tick magnate. He does the hay at night and sometimes will find a tick on himself, when all he’s done is move flakes from the hay stack (small squares) to the stalls:)
There was a blurb on Maine public radio a couple of days ago that October and November have the highest levels of tick activity. That, of course, means possible exposure to Lyme disease. I knew they were active into the fall, but not enough to keep an eye out.
They’re active in the spring too. Any time the temperature is above 32 degrees for 36 hours. EXCEPT in the heat of the summer when they go dormant for six weeks or so.
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It seems to be tick season here. For the past three days, I found one deer tick per day crawling on the tan parts of my black and tan dog when she came inside from our fenced backyard. None have latched on so far, but those are the first ticks I’ve seen since early spring.
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Yes… we have found ticks in our hay when it first came off the field in mid-June. Can’t imagine there would still be any in it now.
We do have a lot of ticks here, which is why I don’t walk my dogs across our fields or through the woods any more 
And I check them over/brush them before they come back in the house after our walks, even though they have not really been in any long grass.
Ticks need moisture to survive. They can survive above ground if there is high humidity, like 85% humidity. If not humid, then they will be near the ground. Hay is too dry to harbor live ticks. Now…perhaps a female tick dropped off and was baled and incubated/hosted the eggs and the larvae are on the prowl…but they are tiny tiny TINY!!! (and only have six legs if you have a microscope). (my dad was an entomologist)
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I don’t think ticks could live in a hay bale very long if the hay was baled dry. They need moisture to survive. And yes they are horrible here too. I have pulled two deer ticks off my head ( they had not attached yet) and found a tiny microscopic seed tick on my side. My cats are all on Revolution Plus so I haven’t seen any on them. Maybe I need to dose myself too.
That is something I have wondered about…we can’t really dose ourselves right? I know it might sound silly.
Don’t need tall grass either. Most of my ticks have come from just being in our yard.
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Yeah. I sat on some very short manicured grass in LA a couple years ago and picked one up. Nasty things.
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A tick might not be able to live very long living in your hay, but it can end up there if you have barn cats that bring them in and then you handle the hay where the tick left the barn cat to hang on the hay.
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