Turkey hunters heading into the woods may want to bring along another weapon: tick repellent.
“We’re seeing ticks becoming active earlier than usual this year,” Kelly Loftin, extension entomologist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said in a news release. “We’re seeing numbers now that you’d expect a few weeks from now.”
Loftin said he’s even seen larval ticks as early as late March, which means the adult females had already been out feeding on blood earlier than that.
“You don’t see larval ticks in late March or even April, at least not that often,” he said “That’s not to say that every adult female had fed that early, but certainly we found one that did.”
Loftin advises turkey hunters, hikers and homeowners to take a few steps to protect themselves and their pets, from ticks.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
• Avoid tick hideouts such as wooded, brushy areas.
• If you’re in tick territory, wear light-colored clothing, long-sleeved shirts, long pants tucked into boots.
• Use skin-safe repellents containing DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus or IR3535.
• Use clothing- and gear-only repellents containing permethrin.
• Once in the house, check your entire body for ticks – parents should carefully inspect their children and pets. Promptly, properly remove attached ticks.
Loftin said that ticks die more quickly in dry environments, so remove leaf litter from the yard, keep the lawn mowed and bush hog or cut down tall grass. Create a dry barrier between lawn and woods by laying gravel or wood chips.
• In the yard, clean up any waste food and wood piles to discourage tick-carrying wild animals from yard, use tick control on pets.
• Loftin also suggests using chemical control in tick-infested yards.
For more information on insect control, contact your county extension office, or visit www.uaex.edu. The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without discrimination.