Tick Control Tubes- The Key to Fewer Ticks in 2022

Your yard is meant to be a stress-free, relaxing environment, but warm-weather invaders can make outdoor living annoying at best and dangerous at worst. If you’re wondering what we mean by a warm-weather invader, we’re talking about everyone’s least favorite arachnids: Ticks. These biters, in addition to looking freaky, are parasites that depend on blood meals sourced directly from their host, and ticks achieve this by plunging their heads into your skin and hanging on for dear life. If this wasn’t unpleasant enough, some ticks carry Lyme disease and can transmit it to anyone they bite. But it’s not all bad news - innovative treatments exist to defend you and your family from this nefarious creature.

Meredith tick control in the winter is set it, forget it!

Ticks are indiscriminate in what they latch onto, and that means they target many other mammals and birds in the animal kingdom. These parasites are well-evolved hunters; they can latch onto potential meals that walk past them in the grass, and in some cases, they will drop out of trees & bushes after smelling or feeling the heat of a human underneath. Fortunately, there are some Meredith tick control options available to you for tick defense. First and foremost is our barrier protection mist, which you’ve probably heard of, but for a targeted approach to tick defense, tick tubes are an innovative option.

What on earth is a tick tube? A tick tube is a biodegradable, environmentally friendly container installed in the ground with one end open. The tube is filled with cotton that has been treated with a pesticide that is lethal to ticks.

This is where it gets interesting.

Mice are burrowers, and they love to make nests out of fluffy, warm things they can scavenge in their habitat. Cotton is a luxury for mice, so they target the tick tube as a source of their favored nesting material. Unfortunately for the ticks, but fortunately for us humans, mice are a common food source of larval ticks (the really tiny ones that like smaller targets), and these ticks will crawl into mice nests to feed. The mice are unaffected by the pesticide in their homes, but ticks find an untimely end when they venture into these treated burrows. In this way, tick tubes create an incredible scenario where mice help you target ticks that might have evaded a surface-level barrier protection treatment.

Tick tubes are also important for another reason. Mice are a major source of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, and by removing the ticks that have fed on these tiny mammals, Lyme disease transmission becomes much less likely! By targeting the larval ticks that rely on creatures like mice, you disrupt the natural life cycle of these parasites. This makes a huge difference for your Meredith tick control efforts.

Meredith tick control in the winter is set it and forget it with Mosquito Squad's effective tick tubes, which work to break the tick life cycle. If you have questions, get in touch with us here!