Natural tick control

Question
Hello Lee,

I am wondering if you could please provide some assistance to me.

I live on a tropical island in the Torres Strait (a stretch of water that divides Australia and Papua New Guinea)

On Horn island, we have a serious problem with tick infested dogs. The indigenious people here are paid an allowance to keep a dog, but none of their dogs are neutered/speyed and year after year, they just keep breeding. The local people do not take care of their animals in any way, shape or form. They simply keep them to get their government grant.

It simply breaks my heart to witness such suffering in these poor animals; they suffer from dermodectic mange, worm infestation and the main reason that I am writing to you; ticks.

These poor animals are simply infested with bush ticks & scrub ticks. Thankfully, we do not have paralysis ticks on this island; though, it may be a blessing if we did, as most of these dogs would surely die out which would eliminate most of these poor animal's suffering. A sad but simple truth, I'm afraid.

My problem is this; I am trying to find a cheap, natural way of controlling these ticks. I am currently attempting to treat a puppy whose ear canals are so badly infested with ticks, that I simply cannot remove them all, such is the pain that this puppy is experiencing.

I know that I cannot possibly afford to treat all these animals with conventional tick treatments such as Frontline, but I am looking for a natural method of at least controlling and getting rid of ticks deply embedded within their ears.

Would a solution of diluted vinegar do the trick? Salt water, perhaps? Dulited Bettadine?? I want to help these animals but I don't want to hurt their already very sore/infested ears.

Please, if you have any ideas at all, I would be so appreciative.

Very sincerely,

Christine  

Answer
I too am deeply upset about the animal neglect that you have told be about. I would encourage you to try the vinegar and water mixture. I have used it successfully to repel flys, it works okay but not great, and it may help repel some of the ticks. The only other suggestion that I could give would be to try a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water. Rubbing alcohol usually will kill ticks if they are covered in it, frontline spray is full of rubbing alcohol; however, the best treatment would be to treat all animals with frontline, which would last for a few months yet I know that you simply can't afford to treat every animal you see. I am not sure what tick species are found in your area, but you may want to research it and educate the people on the island that you know that ticks many times carry diseases that can infect humans (zoonosis). A good tick website is www.petsandparasites.org/home.html and you may be able to find some information there. I do not think that the salt water would be much help, although it may help the areas where ticks have bitten heal faster, and the betadine solution may do the same. Another product specifically for ticks that you may want to try is the Preventic collar, it is less expensive than frontline and is a very potent tick preventor for dogs only, do not use on cats. As far as the ear goes, do not pour betadine, salt water, etc... into the ear this could cause serious infections and if the tempanic membrane(deep inside the ear) is ruptured it will cause the dog to become deaf permanently. You can however soak a cotton swap or cotton ball in alcohol and gently rub the inside of the ears, the only problem is that the ticks are embedded/attached to the innersurface of the ear and the alcohol may not cause the to detach and then die like frontline does, and thus the dog would be carring around dead ticks attached in its ear which could cause some problems. You will just have to try the alcohol and see how it works, I have never directly applied it to an animal to treat ticks, it will also kill fleas and may kill demodex. Check into revoulution, it can treat ticks/fleas/mange(demodex) and can provide some benefits against internal parasites, again I realise that you can't treat all the animals, but you may be able to lower the suffering of a few. Hope this helps and let me know if anything works, it may help animals elsewhere in the future. Sorry I don't have a better solution. Oh, I just thought of something else, you may want to check into getting a tick dip, you can buy a concentrated solution and mix it with water and then spray it on the dogs, it will kill all the ticks/fleas on them but only will last a short time and can't be used too often due to the chemicals in it. It would be less costly than frontline and should work. Go to www.dog.com and search for Ppp Perma dip, it can be diluted 2oz in a gallon of water and should be useful. Other dips are available and you can search for them on the internet, try petsmart, petco, etc... There are also may veterinarians that use herbal/natural treatments for many conditions. You may want to search for their websites and send them a email, they should be willing to help and provide better insight that I can. Let me know if I can provide you with any more information. Hope that this helps