Now what? Besides being extremely grossed out.
I’m guessing vet call Monday?
No real need for the vet. Freedom 45 is a “spot on” treatment that works quite well in controlling ticks.
G.
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Any equine product with permethrin will kill/keep those annoying little buggers off your horses. Residual effect for 1 month. I’m in WY and spray my guys every 2 weeks with Martin’s 10% permethrin concentrate (dilluted per instructions) in summer, and have never found a tick on anyone.
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Gosh I’m disgusted. I guess it’s normal. All my Montana friends with multiple horses said get use to it. I’m off to pick up some good wormer and powder. Not sure if he got it since he’s been in the paddock here or if I’m just now noticing. Horse came off Pryor. Honestly looked a little sickly but I guess when ya got that many ticks on you it’s to be expected.
If you’ve never found ticks before, take a really hard look for more if you haven’t already. If they’re still crawling around they’re easy to find, but if they’re hunkered down and hooked in it’s more subtle but they still make a bump in the coat that’s pretty easy to recognize by feel once you get the hang of it. Some people swear by combs instead.
Oh yeah he’s covered in tick bumps. They are nice and fat.
Picked up some wormer and spray. I figure tomorrow I’ll get some gloves on and tweezers and go for it.
I Did a quick once over on the other three horses and didn’t see any obvious ones.
Dewormer does not work for ticks.
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One of the vet techs said do a dose of ivermectin and it will kill the ones that are currently latched on. Either way they need wormed
Use Freedom or one of the other long lasting insecticides which are usually high strength permethrins (45% permethrin for Freedom I think). Otherwise, to be blunt, don’t panic. Ticks are a fact of life. I start the insecticides when I pick up the first ticks in the spring (I am often in the woods) and use them into December. I just put them on yesterday, 2nd of March. If I called the vet every time there was a tick, I would be even broker than I am.
As for Ivermectin and ticks…never heard of it, but doesn’t mean it doesn’t but I can’t see how it could have any residual…but coming from the state from which Lyme came, I wish it did!
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Ticks are not common in my area but once I was hand grazing my mare and she came out of a patch of tall grass with her udder area covered in ticks! I brushed them all off because they hadn’t latched on yet. Then I made a tick kit with tweezers and a specimen bottle but have never needed it. I spray fly spray on her underparts now too.
I share the horror of the OP but I guess I’d get used to it if I lived where there’s lots of ticks!
+1 I’ve used different permethrin products, they all worked fine. Sprayed them with my field king https://www.backyardstyle.com/best-backpack-sprayer/#product7
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My skin is still crawling… ticks and snakes yuck. Give me anything else.
My husband said in all the years they’ve had horses out there 0 ticks that he knows of.
I threw a little kit together and will go deal with it tomorrow. I’ve had this horse for two weeks and didn’t really notice these were noticeable today
Make sure you check the tip of the dock. Easy for the ticks to grab on to a tail hair and crawl up, that’s the first place to latch on the come across, and pretty protected from the horse’s grooming efforts.
You do not want to spray or use any chemical products to try to get ticks to release on any critter - they will either vomit (releasing any pathogens they may be carrying) or burrow in deeper (or both) - this is a CDC recommendation. Remove them by hand, good pair of tweezers will work.
Ticks are a constant here, so if you have never had one before, lucky!
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I’m sorry but I can’t believe a tech said that. The ticks are going to fall off the horse as soon as they are full anyway.
Someome brought up,on another forum regarding Moose dying from having so many ticks on them.
as another poster commented, the horse needs to be checked at least once a day, I check twice a day. Check ears, the nether areas as I have pulled them out of the sheath. Also check the anal area, I’ve pulled them out of there too. Armpits, crest of the neck, on the neck under the mane.
Get used to taking your gloves off long enough to run your hands across the horse. If you feel a bump that moves, that’s a tick.
I shampoo my horses with Povidine shampoo during tick season because it makes the little b’s stand straight up and their easier to see. Can’t do that in the winter but it works well in warmer months when ticks are at their peak activity.
It was a whole argument on my FB page. Does that equispot stuff work?
I’m sure they are everywhere on him. All over his belly, saddle pad area, neck. He has a nice long mane and tail.
We had an early spring here as well… normally we have snow. It’s been nice and warm lately.
Can I just pick them off and throw em in a ziplock baggie of water or baby oil? Don’t have rubbing alcohol.
Yes, you have to pull them off. If you can’t pull them straight off or get hold of them, smother them in any sort of ointment. Product.
I use hemorrhoid ointment as it helps reduce itching, swelling. Vaseline works.
I have a jar at the barn with a screw on lid marked ticks — it gives me great pleasure to throw them in there - alive - together, lollol
If he is that loaded with them, I would think about getting him tested for Lymes and whatever other diseases ticks may carry in your area.
When we first moved here, we were inundated with ticks. I fed powdered garlic (it has to be processed, don’t feed raw garlic). It was 80% successful in keeping ticks off the horses.
However, garlic I s hard on the digestive system, long term. I would not feed it to a horse with digestive issues, ulcers, or tends to colic.
you could try the topical products others have suggested but watch for skin reaction.
my new neighbors have laying chickens. They stay on their side of the fence but they do a great job of keeping the tick population down.
Guineas are also terrific tick eaters but you would need to lock them up at night to keep the coyotes from getting them. Hawks line them too.
With respect to those who suggest hand removal, that is a program that’s going to be of limited effectiveness. With one horse there might be a chance it can work. But you’ve got a herd of any size you have just imposed a draconian time restraint on somebody to inspect a group of 1000 pound animals in detail and and do manual removal.
There are many effective chemical methods to deal with ticks on livestock. Horses are livestock. Explore them.
To deal with ticks you DO remove by hand you can do the removal on a concrete floor (or other hard surface), drop the tick, and step on it using a “twisting motion” (like you were grinding out a lit ember). Check when you’re done to make sure you got it. With “seed ticks” (the really small ones) you can use about any hard surface and do the same thing using a finger nail. The best plan is to have a jar of alcohol there (easily obtained from Walmart or Walgreens or the like). Remember that if you’re going to use the manual method you are going to be doing this EVERY DAY for months. Set up a “station” where you can do the job most efficiently (lots of light, room to work around the horse, tools to deal with the problem, etc.).
Sometimes “better things for better living through chemistry” is a viable road.
G.
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Yes, ivermectin WILL kill ticks who are actively feeding.
https://aaep.org/sites/default/files/Guidelines/AAEP-ExternalParasites071316Final.pdf
“Alternatively, orally administered ivermectin is effective against ticks on horses, however the tick must first take a blood meal from the treated horse to be affected by the drug.”
However:
“For tick species that may be capable of transmitting disease within a short period of time after feeding has begun, using oral ivermectin as the sole option for tick control may not mitigate tick-borne disease transmission and additional treatment modalities should be used in conjunction with this method.”
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Anybody else keep a tick bag? Mine is a ziplock with the year marked on it where I keep all the ticks from my horse and me. I tell my wife that if my horse or I go crazy, someone needs to check out these ticks first.
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