These little pests are becoming more common in Australia. Of course in the States they carry the dreaded Lyme Disease. Carrying a safe means of removing them and/or treating tick bites on self/companion animals is becoming more urgent than ever. Paralysis ticks have even spread to Southern Victoria. a couple of them (undetected for too long) were what ultimately took out our darling old pet Tiny back in February at the fine old age of 18. A number of products are on the market, and there is much wise advice out there too…
The main point is not to squeeze the tick so that it injects more nastiness into the wound. You have to ease it out. Something must lift it from the front. If you can coax it to let go first is a good idea. Some Permethrin is what my vet recommends. Some interesting gadgets:
Protick Remedy: https://tickinfo.com/protickremedy
Tickminator: https://tickminator.com/
Tick Ease: https://tickease.com.au/
Tick Key: http://tickkey.com/
The irrepressible Brian Green has ‘hacked the tick key bringing it down from the unwieldy 5.4 grams to a more acceptable 1.6! Well done Brian. It is an ingenious solution. I hope he doesn’t mind me ‘copying’ his photo of it:
https://www.briangreen.net/bbb/2013/09/micro-tick-key-hacking-size.html
PS: It seems to me, looking at the various credit card tick removal tools (for example) that a couple of (different sized) v-shaped nicks in your normal credit card (titanium wind screen, etc) might create a tool which would have negative weight(in that you would have removed a tiny portion of the weight of the credit card/game licence (or similar) you would have had to carry anyway. Just saying…
Another point. A minute quantity of a variety of recommended tick removing fluids (eg Aerostart) ought maybe to be carried. This might be the ideal application for the drinking straw hack.
Some fine tick advice below:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2016-11-02/the-tick-debate:-how-should-you-pull-them-out/7541358
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-remove-ticks-from-a-dog
See Also:
http://www.theultralighthiker.com/tick-removal-spots-first-tick/
http://www.theultralighthiker.com/a-tiny-life/
