Ticks have a season, with one or two broods depending on how long your summer season is. During brood time, limit outdoor exposure. To learn your tick season, contact your agricultural extension agency. In most boreal locations, it is "early summer" and if there's a second brood, "mid late summer," each lasting about ten to fourteen days. 

I am glad you see how climate change affects this. Too many people don't pay attention, and then argue when confronted.

True, while ticks are never gone during the warm season, their population surges either once or twice in reproductive cycles, when they become especially numerous. 

I don't know of any effective controls that would not also adversely affect something else, and possibly long term throw an entire ecosystem out of whack. Certainly not over a wide area of multiple acres. Ticks are especially good at avoiding contact controls, and are unusually resistant. To avoid them, we have to limit contact as much as possible on our end, and diligently inspect when returning from their territory. 

Siagiah wrote:

Pikes Peak 14115 wrote:

I am glad you see how climate change affects this. Too many people don't pay attention, and then argue when confronted.

True, while ticks are never gone during the warm season, their population surges either once or twice in reproductive cycles, when they become especially numerous. 

I don't know of any effective controls that would not also adversely affect something else, and possibly long term throw an entire ecosystem out of whack. Certainly not over a wide area of multiple acres. Ticks are especially good at avoiding contact controls, and are unusually resistant. To avoid them, we have to limit contact as much as possible on our end, and diligently inspect when returning from their territory. 

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I don't think that you understand the severity of the problem.  I cannot avoid areas they are found in because it is virtually my ENTIRE property.  If I set foot outside, for any reason, I ALWAYS have at least one tick on me when I come in.  My dog brings DOZENS in a week. 


In the spring and summer, we CAN use the process outlined in the youtube video, but it's extremely difficult and costly to do.  I may just have to bite the bullet and DO IT before the next crop of tick eggs are laid. 

At least this process DOESN'T significantly injure anything else, including the field mice who live in the nests.




 

I understand the problem better than you think. Don't forget I studied arthropods, insects and spiders, including ticks, most all my life. We have serious tick problems here; Tick Fever, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever... 
I know the species, life cycle and vectors. Ixodida are arachnids. Although the term larvae is used for hatchlings, ticks don't pass through metamorphosis, like larvae of insects.  They are not larvae. They are like nymphs, passing through as instars that grow larger, but always with adult characteristics, until maturity when they reproduce. 

The tick tube idea may work, but will take a while, and there is a lot of chance. Permethrin must come into contact with the chitinous tick exoskeleton, and works by breaking down chitin. It doesn't work on eggs, but will on nymphs. The tube idea depends on mice carrying cotton to the next, and through that, permethrin coming into direct contact with the tick exoskeleton to break it down and kill it. The way that works in the lab is one thing. In the field is another. 

In terms of human ability to control, on a scale of 1 to 10, I put ticks at 10. They lived on earth for 400 million years almost unchanged, making them one of the most successful life forms on the planet. Conrol of anything this successful is very, very difficult. Look at the futile efforts to stop both killer bees and fire ants. Human interventions made almost no difference anywhere, and in both cases, climate became a control human efforts could not. 

You have my sympathy and understanding. Indeed I do understand- better than most.