Tick Tips!

A tick has to bite you to infect you with its germs. If the tick hasn’t attached to your skin, you can’t contract the diseases it might be carrying. But finding one tick on your body means others could be lurking. So, do a thorough tick check. And if you have been bitten, remove the tick as soon as possible.

Ticks can spread disease within minutes to days after attaching to your skin.  

There are at least 16 known tickborne diseases, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and babesiosis. Lyme disease is spread by the bite of a blacklegged tick called Ixodes scapularis or Ixodes pacificus. While blacklegged ticks can also cause other illnesses, species like the American dog tick, brown dog tick, Rocky Mountain wood tick, or Lone Star tick, carry different diseases.

Sometimes you can tell what kind of tick bit you based on what the tick looks like and where you were when you got bitten. However, nymphal ticks, which are the size of poppy seeds, can be too small to identify properly and the range of tick habitats is constantly changing. Contact your local department of health to see how you can send in a tick to be identified.

Ticks will feed on a host animal, such as a mouse, that is infected with a bloodborne pathogen.  As the tick feeds, it will ingest the pathogen.  When the tick later feeds on another host animal, such as a human, it may pass the pathogen onto this new host.

There are many ways to reduce your exposure to ticks and tick bites, including avoiding known tick habitats, wearing protective clothing, using EPA-registered insect repellent, checking your body for ticks, and checking your gear and pets after being outdoors, among others.  

Yes. Even though winter is relatively lower risk, ticks can be active any time the temperature is above freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit). This includes insulated areas, such as leaf litter, that have been warmed by the sun on otherwise cold days.