Methods For Killing Ticks

There are lots of poisons available for killing ticks. The least favorite of the dogs is dipping. They would rather you pick the ticks off by hand or maybe tweezers so they can get a good groom while the owner is removing the parasites and dropping them in a jar of water or something else meant to end their worthless little lives. That can take a while, but might become a good hobby for certain kinds of people. There are highly effective once a month treatments. One is the spray on front line plus which is a little cheaper than the spot on formula, but more trouble. Advantage is another good spot on once a month treatment that is not quite as good as frontline plus. Once a month pills called Comfortis is now available for fleas, but it is expensive and not good for killing ticks.

Most poisons work better against fleas than ticks. Unfortunately, most poisons allow a tick to first bit a dog for several hours before dying. This is plenty of time to allow the tick to spread diseases. Worse is that as long as there are ticks on the property, they might regularly bite you or your children spreading lyme disease. This is especially true if somebody lives in a rural area. The good news, is that if you live in a rural area you can have some completely natural and organic help in the tick battle. Chickens and guineas eat ticks and love to spend their day looking for them. Of course this means having dogs that will not eat the fowls. If you get dogs as puppies and raise them with fowl this usually is not a problem, though some breeds are worse than others. Dogs can do good with feathered friends. The poultry gets protection from predators and the dogs get protection from ticks by the chickens. Goats and other vegetaran tick victims easily benefit from tick eating birds.

Not everybody can use the poultry method for killing ticks and will have to be thankful for all the advanced tick killing methods. Revolution can cover fleas, ticks, and heart worms. While it works well against fleas and ticks it is not that terrific for internal parasites. It does not cover as many internal parasites as other pills and it has a higher failure rate at preventing heart worms. The store brand spot on flea and tick control is not usually as effective as the kinds you get at the vet. Front line plus seems to have the highest success rate for the money.