Tips on how to get through tick season

Ticks are around all year long but spring and summer are known as tick season.

Common places for ticks include tall grass and in brushy forested areas, but it’s not unheard of to find them while you’re in your outside in your neighborhood or doing yard work. That’s why experts want you to be vigilant.

Kate Lawrence, agriculture extension agent at Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Botetourt County office recommends wearing lighter color clothes while outside so you can better see a tick crawling on you and remove it before it attaches.

Another tip, after your time outside, do a tick check and take a good shower. The longer a tick is attached to you the more like it is to transmit a disease.

Lawrence said there are several removal tricks online, but their research shows the best option.

“Either with a small piece of tissue paper, really ideally with a pair of tweezers, you want to get that thing as close to the skin as possible and pull gently and steadily straight up. No twisting or jerking and that’s the most likely way for you to remove the whole tick and not any of the mouthparts behind,” said Lawrence.

Once that tick is removed, wash the area it was attached to. If you’re interested in what type of tick it is you can take it to your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office to get it tested.

The common ticks of Virginia include American Dog Tick, Lone Star Tick and Deer Tick. The newest one is the Asian Long-Horned Tick.

Research is still being done on the long-horned tick, but what they do know is it can reproduce on its own and is more of a threat to livestock. There’s still a concern for what it can do to people.

“I think just the unknown and because it’s a new species we obviously learn things as we go along so we’re not sure what all it brings because it hasn’t been here very long we know it has a significant impact in other countries. It’s present in and it definitely has a significant impact on livestock species,” said Lawrence.