Tick Talk
Kendall and Rebecca discuss the rising threat of ticks in New Hampshire with Extension Diagnostic Service Program Manager Shyloh Favreau. Ticks, which are arthropods not insects, are obligate blood feeders and transmit diseases like Lyme disease. Favreau explains the importance of tick checks, personal protection measures like clothing choices, and the use of repellents. Shyloh also highlights the UNH Tick Testing Service, which identifies and tests ticks for pathogens, providing results within three days. The service is available year-round and can help inform medical decisions. Favreau emphasizes vigilance and education to stay safe from ticks.
Show notes:
Shyloh Favreau: shyloh.favreau@unh.edu or 603-862-3200
Biology and Management of Ticks in New Hampshire: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/biology-and-management-ticks-new-hampshire-fact-sheet
Center of Disease Control Ticks page: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/about/index.html
Permethrin on treated clothing – EPA: https://www.epa.gov/insect-repellents/repellent-treated-clothing
UNH Extension Tick Testing page: https://extension.unh.edu/tick-testing
Questions on tick testing email address: unh.ccwl@unh.edu
UNH Cooperative Extension: www.extension.unh.edu
Women in Ag Newsletter signup - https://unhoutreach.tfaforms.net/217751?CID=701G0000001AiKCIA0
Kendall Kunelius – kendall.kunelius@unh.edu
Rebecca Dube – rebecca.dube@unh.edu
Transcript:
Kendall Kunelius 0:00
Welcome to this episode of Shared Soil, a podcast dedicated to creating community, honoring challenges and encouraging personal and professional growth for all people in agriculture. My name is Kendall Kunelius, and I am a county-based field specialist in the area of agricultural business management.
Rebecca Dube 0:26
And I'm Rebecca Dube, providing administrative and technology support to Extension.
Kendall Kunelius 0:32
So Rebecca, this morning, I was outside enjoying the sunshine in my garden before work. I went outside, and I have a dog, and I enjoy going out and spending some time with her in the mornings. And as I was walking around, I went out to visit my chickens and my gardens, and then I came back inside. And before I came back inside, I did an all-important tick check. I tick-checked my legs, and I found a tiny little poppy seed-looking thing with legs on it. And then I'm kind of lucky, because my dog is white, so anything on her really stands out, you know, like insects or bugs or debris, that kind of stuff. So, you know, I checked her too.
Rebecca Dube 1:09
Oh, good. Well, speaking of ticks, today, our podcast is becoming a Tick Talk, and we are talking with Extension Diagnostic Service Program Manager Shyloh Favreau about these insect pests that can have serious consequences to our health if not addressed adequately. Shyloh, can you please take a moment to introduce yourself and talk a little bit about some of the dangers of a tick bite and the diagnostics Extension can do to a tick if you get bitten?
Shyloh Favreau 1:37
Yes, absolutely. Hi Kendall and Hi Rebecca. It's nice to chat with you guys. Hi, yeah, so great to be here. I think that full disclosure for everyone listening to this Tick Talk is recalling that I think everyone should be prepared to feel very itchy by the end of the segment, because I think this might be the more creepy-crawly gross factor sessions that you have.
Kendall Kunelius 2:03
Yeah, I don't think we've gotten any. We did an IPM one, but we didn't talk about the insects themselves. So yeah, this is the the nitty-gritty.
Shyloh Favreau 2:11
Nitty gritty. Well, I suppose it's no better place to start than to introduce what a tick is in general. Because other than seeing them out and about all the time and knowing that they're scary and a pest, you know, I'm not sure how many people spend that much time thinking about what a tick actually is. And I will first start by saying that ticks are actually arthropods, not insects. They're more closely related to spiders and mites. You know, think they have eight legs. And there's two main groups of ticks, there's hard ticks and there's soft ticks. The ones you're most likely to encounter here in New Hampshire are the hard ticks. And they really just get that name because they have a tough shield-like structure on their back. The only thing with the podcast, it's hard to show some photos, but I encourage everyone to do their Googling, because you can really see that shield in the images. Anyways, so ticks, they're obligate blood feeders, and that just means that they require an animal host to survive and develop. Unfortunately for us, ourselves and our pets often end up as those hosts. And despite them being a pest and an annoyance, they're also really effective vectors for a range of diseases, and they transmit more types of pathogens than any other blood feeding arthropod in North America.
Kendall Kunelius 3:33
I want to ask a point of clarity there. So, I actually love a good spider. I personally, I like to see them in my garden. I know they're really important for pest control. So in that sense, I think of like arthropods and arachnids, like that kind of family, I tend to think of them as beneficials. But ticks are actually a big concern in New Hampshire, you know, for the men the reasons you mentioned. But can you maybe just get into that a little bit more?
Shyloh Favreau 3:58
Yeah, so Well, I guess I'll just take a moment to give ticks a little bit of credit, maybe not too much, but a little bit. There's ecological roles for everything, right? And they are a food source. You know, you think about wild turkeys, that's a food source for them. I'm not saying let's work to preserve and invite them into our homes or anything, but you know, everything has an ecological role. So we can give them a little bit of credit there, I guess asfar as to touch on your question about, why are we talking about this today? Like, what's the risk? I think we can all agree that we're seeing, we're seeing ticks, and a lot of them; and noticing this and thinking, wow, that seems to be a lot of ticks. Yeah, what you're noticing is true, there are a lot more ticks these days. And I'm not able to show you these maps, but I have these really good maps. There's two of them, and one takes me back to 1996. These are from the CDC, the Center of Disease Control. And this is specific to- The most common species in our region are the American dog tick, also known as the wood tick, and the black-legged tick, commonly called the deer tick, and the black-legged tick being the one that can transmit Lyme disease. And there are a few other tick species in the area. I think there's a lot of attention on the Lone Star tick. It is here. It's only considered established in one county, in Merrimack County. So it's not impossible that you could encounter one. It's just not as prominent as the dog ticks and the deer ticks, which you're pretty much guaranteed to have an encounter with at some point.
Shyloh Favreau 5:33
But anyways, the rising threat of ticks around here, it has increased significantly. Like I said, I have a map here from the CDC from 1996 and I also have a map from as early as 2023 and what this map is showing me is tick distribution and what is considered established habitats over the years. And from 1996 it's the red zones which are showing the established zones. They're notable, there's a good amount of established area. However, compared to 2023 it's pretty much instead of having scattered established areas, basically everything north of Pennsylvania, it's all red. It's all considered an established, well-established habitat, specifically for the black-legged ticks, the ones carrying Lyme disease, the deer tick.
Kendall Kunelius 6:20
And we can put those maps in the show notes too, either links to them, or maybe we could put images in so that folks can see that comparison that you're talking about that sounds pretty significant. And even like, I grew up in northern Vermont, and I don't really remember hearing about ticks being a concern as a kid. People saying, oh, it's not really warm enough up here for them, that kind of thing. So I feel like even in my lifetime, that has been a rising concern, or we've seen that, I don't want to use the word creep, but we've seen that map in real life kind of increasing up this way.
Shyloh Favreau 6:51
Yeah, the creepy ticks are creeping. One thing I want to say, because I think a lot of people ask this question, is, when I say established, what I mean by established is that established essentially just means that there's evidence that ticks are reproducing and maintaining a population in that area, rather than appearing occasionally.
Rebecca Dube 7:11
Ah, okay, yes.
Shyloh Favreau 7:13
So when I say established, that's what I mean. They're not just like, oh, Kendall, or you Rebecca, you just like, you're in some other place where they were established. They got on you, and it was, there's a few of them occurring. No, these are - These ticks are established, they're reproducing, they're here to stay.
Rebecca Dube 7:28
Well, I have a question, then. We hear about, like Kendall mentioned, the cold temperatures of northern Vermont, and you hear in winters, the cold can lower the tick population, but we haven't been having as cold winters. Does this particular winter of '25 to '26, was that cold enough to reduce the tick population at all?
Shyloh Favreau 7:47
It's a hard question to answer. I think there's a lot of factors. I will say, we think about tick seasonality, and there are peaks and dips, as far as high population times versus just steady population times. But these days, I would say from like, I think we started seeing numbers at our tick Testing Service, which I'll talk about later. Two weeks ago, we all of a sudden started getting submissions. And I think anytime from the end of March, you know, or maybe at least April 1, all the way through until you're sitting down for Thanksgiving, or maybe even a little after, depending, you should be vigilant for ticks these days. And like I said, there are peak times of different, you know, sometimes there's a peak in nymph populations of a deer tick, or later in the season, a higher population of the adults. And the same thing goes in a different season for the dog ticks as well. But they're out, and they're out all the time, everywhere. If it's over 40 degrees and there's not a lot of snow on the ground or no snow, they're out and they're active. And the calls that I've been receiving the past couple of weeks is, I think is evidence to tick time is here.
Rebecca Dube 8:47
Oh, well, I don't like to interact with ticks at all. I think most people don't. So what is the best way to keep them off of me and maybe my dog as well?
Shyloh Favreau 8:56
Yes, there are a lot of different things that you can do to help lower your chances of getting a tick bite. The first thing that I like to say is aside education, which we're doing right here, which is great. So thank you all for providing this for the public. Second, it's personal protection. It's really the best thing that you can do for yourself and do for your pets on your person. The number one thing, it costs no money and it's very minimal effort, is your clothing choices. The first thing that I like to do is I have my long pants on, and I wear long socks, and I take those socks and I basically tuck my pants into my socks and I pull them up. It's not a fashion Well, I guess it is a fashion statement, depending on how you think of it. Some people would disagree that that's not stylish. However it's safe. And in addition to that, you should also tuck in your shirt into your waistband, into your pants. And what that does - most ticks, they do this thing. I love a myth buster. Ticks do not jump, ticks do not fly, but they do do this thing called questing. And basically what that means if you just, like, put your hands out right in front of you and spread your fingers apart, maybe do some jazz hands, you know,
Kendall Kunelius 10:07
Yep, you know we're doing this!
Shyloh Favreau 10:10
I love that you're doing that. You know, think about jazz hands. A tick is like on the edge of a leaf or on a blade of grass. They're just, they're hanging out, doing this thing called questing, waiting for you to, you or your pet to brush past, and they latch on. That's what they're doing. So they're really, they're coming from the bottom up. So if you've tucked your pants into your socks and you have tucked in your waistband, then what you're doing is - the tick is coming, is latching on to, let's say, your shoe. Then they've crawled up. Now they can't get under your pant leg to go crawl up your pants to bite you. So they keep on going up your leg, and then they've reached your waist. Well, they can't crawl up under your shirt, because now you've tucked your shirt in. So now you're giving yourself time to notice the tick all the way up until it gets to your around your neck, to your shirt collar, before they can get under and potentially bite you. I'm not saying it's a 100% guarantee, but you're giving yourself a lot more time and a lot less access for that tick to get on your skin, to bite you.
Rebecca Dube 11:07
Sure.
Shyloh Favreau 11:08
And I think that that simple thing is really important. The other thing, if you really want to go up and beyond with the clothing, you could choose to wear a lighter clothing. The ticks have no color preference. It's just because ticks are dark and it's just easier to see. If you're wearing a white sock or light-colored pants, you're more likely to be able to see ticks crawling on you, because they can be really small depending on the life stage. Actually, the deer tick, the nymphs, it's not because they are carrying, statistically carrying more or less of potential pathogens like Lyme disease, for example, but I think more people are getting those diseases from the nymphs because they're so small and you're not able to see them or notice them as early or at all. They're, like, the size of a poppy seed! Like, if you're eating a poppy seed bagel or a lemon poppy seed muffin, one singular poppy seed is the size of a tick nymph. It's very small.
Kendall Kunelius 11:57
Yeah, they're tiny. And, like I said in the beginning, too, I'm very lucky that my dog is white. So it's very easy to see on her coat that if she has little things crawling. But even then, I find those ticks are so insidious. They're so good at getting where they want to go really quickly. I'm gonna say, like, on an animal specifically. And even then I have a hard time. I really have to comb through carefully to find that size tick. So what you're saying is, I think it's a really, it's a phenomenon that a lot of people are familiar with, and it's the frustrating thing about ticks, for sure, is that they're just, they're really hard to put a visual on.
Shyloh Favreau 12:32
Yeah, so frustrating. And like I said, you know, you're wearing those protective - the way that you wear your clothes, great, great option. But also, like you're saying, you're checking Rosie, your dog. Tick checks: you do on your pets, you do it on yourself. Because if you have a dog that goes outside and your dog comes back in, you know, one that could be on your dog, or two, it could crawl off. And if your dog gets up on your couch and that tick crawls off on the couch, and then you go to sit on the couch, well, that tick could crawl right on to you. And I'm not a veterinarian. I'm not speaking as a veterinarian, but you know, it's important that there are preventatives that you can discuss with your veterinarian to help keep pets safe. And so I encourage folks to do that, because it really does make a difference.
Kendall Kunelius 13:13
Yeah, for sure. And I'll add in too pets and livestock. So as a former horse person, I feel like one of the other things I've noticed is Lyme disease in horses was really, that was a big topic of conversation when I was going through college. So I have an equine degree, and that was one of the things we talked about a lot, was like the discussion of what does Lyme disease look like in large animals? How does it manifest? What are the side effects? Or what do we see because of it? So that has always been really interesting to me that you were saying ticks are obligate blood feeders. But when we talk about blood feeders, it's really indiscriminate, right? It's large, small, every animal in between. So one of the questions I want to specifically ask you, because we know those ticks are everywhere, how do we actually remove that tick if we found one that has bitten us?
Shyloh Favreau 13:59
Yes, well, there's two parts of this that I want to say. Give me one second to get to the part about safely removing the tick. Because the one thing you know, back to the question or the thought of the rising threat of ticks. You're talking about all these hosts. I think it's an interesting fact to know, or facts to understand why, why ticks have increased in population over these years. And one of those you're talking about hosts is we have an increased deer population here. They are a preferred host, especially for black legged adult ticks. And let's take it way back to, like early 1900s. There was only about 300,000 deer in the US. Now, we went from that to mid 2010. It was reported there's like 4 million white tailed deer. So you know where there's hosts, where there's preferred hosts, there will be ticks, and that's just one of them. You know, there's changing weather patterns impact it. And also the fact that you know us as people, we are moving into previously uninhabited places where it's prime habitat for ticks.
Kendall Kunelius 15:00
It's interesting you say that about the deer population. I'm thinking back to our Working with Wildlife episode when we had Matt Tarr, who's our Extension wildlife state specialist and conservation officer, Cole LeTourneau, and we were talking about the North American model of conservation and right for that repopulation of species. So if you're interested in hearing more about that model, I encourage listeners to go listen to our Working with Wildlife episode, because it gives more insight just on what you were talking about Shiloh, like how those species are starting to become more prevalent through conservation efforts. Not saying that's a bad thing, because we do, you know, deer are an important piece of like you were saying, everything has a place in the - it's a factor. How about we say it's a factor in what's informing this?
Shyloh Favreau 15:43
Absolutely yes, yeah. But back to your question about safely removing a tick. Great question. Really important. I should also say that when in doubt, do a tick check. Check yourself. No matter what you do, whether you're tucking in your socks, tucking in your shirt, or talking about personal protection, as far as different sprays using a chemical preventative. That's a whole different thing that we can touch on here, if we have time. But doing a tick check under your arms, your neck, you know, I mean, honestly, everywhere. And same thing with your pet, you just never know. It's better to check when you come home at the end of the day, or even if you're out for a long time. The more often you check, the less likely you're going to have a tick bite you, because you'll see it crawling first, or the sooner you get that tick off that has bitten you. And if that happens, which you know it happened - Despite efforts, it is still possible to be bitten by a tick, unfortunately, and that moment can be really unsettling and scary for a lot of people. For myself, I'm like, Yeah, it's fine. I'll just pull it off and not care. But that's, I think that's a pretty uncommon response. It is unsettling, and they're kind of scary and creepy. And safely removing the tick is really important. And that really is the first step, you know, take a deep breath and find the things that you need to safely remove the tick. And when in doubt, if there's nothing available to you, you know, using your hands, use whatever, is to get the tick off safely. It's better than leaving the tick on. But if you're in a situation where you have some options, there's a lot of things out there, a lot of products, lots of information. My recommendation for the best way to remove a tick is to use fine tip tweezers. And I say that because, you know, you think of those fine tips - they're really slim and skinny at the end. And instead of, like in comparison to your fingers, which are very big compared to a small tick, or even a very engorged tick. And so if you're pressing on that, trying to pull it with your fingers, what's happening is you're squeezing the tick, all the tick guts. I know. Sorry, that's why I said this is a gross episode.
Kendall Kunelius 17:45
Yeah, here we are, we're at the gross part!
Shyloh Favreau 17:50
And potentially, you're pushing those tick guts while it's still attached you, into your body, which could increase your risk of contracting you know, any of the given pathogen that that tick may or, may be carrying. And so by using the needle nose ones, you know, you're really just kind of getting really close to the head, and you're just very steadily holding on to the tweezers and with even pressure and pulling upward, just slowly and steadily. Just straight up, you know, try to avoid any twisting or things like that, because it can cause those mouth parts to break off and remain in the skin. And if that happens, you can go back and just gently remove the mouth parts with the tweezers, and then after once the tick has been safely removed, as soon as you're able to, I mean, if you're out in the field or on a hike, you know, do your best, but if you're somewhere where you can, wash just with gentle water and antibacterial soap. That's the best thing to do and keep an eye on it. I'm not a medical professional. I'm not going to give medical, I can't give medical advice. But it's important that you know you've been bitten by a tick and where it is, keep an eye on it. It's always good to follow up with a medical professional.
Kendall Kunelius 18:54
But importantly, when you pull the tick off, you have two choices. You could either dispose of it, but we are now providing another option with what you could do with it.
Shyloh Favreau 19:06
We are providing another option. It's been barely maybe a year next week. Myself, with the core collaborative wet lab here on campus, we are able to offer a tick testing service here through the university, which is something I've been really excited about, and I think the service has been really helpful already for our New Hampshire residents. And yeah, I can talk about that if you if you want.
Rebecca Dube 19:29
Yes, please do
Kendall Kunelius 19:31
Yeah.
Shyloh Favreau 19:31
So yeah, like I said, almost a year we have been providing a tick testing service for anybody. Anyone can submit a tick for testing, and we have worked really hard to make that as easy as possible. And so what happens is you, unfortunately, you get a tick bite, you take it off. Once you've removed the tick, you can place it and put it in like a Ziploc bag or any sealed container that you have on you, and you can mail in or drop it off in person to the Durham campus. And we can test those ticks, the tick or ticks for you, for the top pathogens that the ticks are most likely to carry in our region. I won't list them all here, but that's something that we can provide as a resource after the fact of the specific pathogens that we test in our panels. But you order your, you go online, you order the tick, at unh.how/tick. And once you complete your order, you get a confirmation code. You just write that confirmation code on the baggie, and you can either drop it off in person or mail it in. And once we receive your receive the tick specimen, we try our best to keep a very quick turnaround time so that you can get those results. Because, you know, it's important that you want a quick turnaround time to be able to take action. And so we try to get it back as early as three days, and it usually is around that timeframe.
Rebecca Dube 20:44
Oh, great.
Shyloh Favreau 20:45
The only thing we can't guarantee is the mailing - how long it takes to get to us. But once it gets to us, our average turnaround time is three days to get those back to you. Like I said, I'm not a medical professional. The lab, we are not human medical professionals in any way. But what happens is the tick is tested, you'll receive a report, and that report will say - it will list every pathogen that we test for, and it will say that the tick has tested positive or negative for that pathogen.
Rebecca Dube 21:11
And will that report tell someone who doesn't know much about the pathogens what that could lead to? Like this is the pathogen that tends to lead to Lyme disease?
Shyloh Favreau 21:20
We do give some information, but we do encourage folks to - we forward them to the Center of Disease Control website, because they're the professionals. They have very detailed, very easy to read descriptions of each pathogen. So we do direct them. We try to keep the human side to the human professionals. But I will say is the important thing about the report is that it's not, the report is not telling you that you have contracted any of these diseases. It Is saying what has been present or not present in the tick specimen itself. But what you can do with the report is you can take it to your physician, and that can help the physician make informed medical decisions on your health. You know you could say, hey, like, I got bit by this tick, and I sent this tick in, and the report came back and said that that tick was carrying Lyme disease. That doctor then can say, Okay, well, whatever the doctor thinks is the best plan of action.
Kendall Kunelius 22:13
So it sounds to me like there's two different elements of this tick service, the first being the identification. You can send it in, and you and or the people on campus, can identify the exact tick, and then that's one data point. And if you want to get it tested, it will be then tested for those pathogens. And that's where we just went down the road with saying different ticks could lead to different pathogens, and they're tested appropriately depending on the identification of the tick.
Shyloh Favreau 22:40
That's true. Yes, all the ticks get identified. We don't expect you to know what kind of tick you found. When you send it in, the first step is we will identify the tick and then proceed with the testing panel appropriately for that tick species.
Kendall Kunelius 22:54
Yeah.
Shyloh Favreau 22:54
And the only difference is that, important to note that we have two separate services. We have the tick testing services, which includes the identification and the testing. And then the separate service that we have is our insect and arthropod identification service, which is not just ticks, it's any insect or arthropod that you could submit. And we will identify it for you and let you know what it is. Let's just say it's a house or like a pantry pest, we'll give you information on how to manage that pest. Now, for the tick, you can also submit a tick to the identification service, but what you'll get is we'll identify what the tick species is, and when we know what that tick species is, we're able to tell you the types of pathogens that this tick species is known to carry. But what you won't know is whether or not that tick is actually carrying any of them or not. That's the difference between the ID service and the testing service, if that makes sense.
Kendall Kunelius 23:47
Yeah. And so that could be helpful for folks who maybe find a tick crawling on them, or like you were saying with the questing. I have actually seen ticks sitting at the end of tall grasses, really is when I see them, but see them sitting out there. And I could grab that tick questing while it's still alive, but it hasn't bitten me. And I could submit that. And that would maybe give me an idea what kind of ticks are in my area, right? So, but so, yeah, so to clarify, the tick doesn't have to be biting you to submit it. You could just find one and send it in.
Shyloh Favreau 24:18
People are welcome to submit for any - we we do not discriminate on curiosity versus health concern. We will accept any tick for the tick testing service and any tick or any other insect or arthropod for the identification service. And it's year round.
Kendall Kunelius 24:34
Yeah. I think the other important thing to put in here too is to say UNH is - we're educational. And to kind of echo your sentiment, curiosity is a great reason to submit an insect or a tick of some sort. And I would just encourage listeners, whether you're part of our farmer crowd who listens to this, homeowner, just someone who found our podcast and you're familiar with Extension, that's really what we're here for, is education. So Shyloh, if someone has another question about the tick testing service, or they want to get in touch with you for other reasons, how would they best go about that and are you the best person to reach out to for those questions?
Shyloh Favreau 25:08
I would absolutely encourage anybody at any time to email me, which is shyloh.favreau@unh.edu. You can also contact my phone number at 603-862-3200, and I'll definitely get back to you as soon as I can with those questions. There's also the email specific to the tick testing lab, if you have questions about getting your tick tested, and that's just unh.ccwl@unh.edu. And those folks that I work with with the tick testing can also help you.
Rebecca Dube 25:39
We'll put all those in the show notes as well for people.
Shyloh Favreau 25:43
We try to make ourselves as accessible as possible. To answer your questions, help you get your ticks submitted, answer your curiosities about any insect or arthropod that you have. It's all about learning. It's about learning for the public, and the submissions also are helping us. It's possible that someone might have picked up an insect or something, and submitted it, and we find out that that's the first time that that insect has been seen in the state, or an invasive and, you know, it could be anything. So it's helpful. It's helpful for everybody.
Kendall Kunelius 26:11
Yeah, and that goes back to what you were saying about defining an established population. And that kind of makes me think too that submitting a sample is really good for the community as a whole. And the other thing I think of, too, is areas in your yard where you might be more exposed to ticks versus less exposed to ticks, and really quickly, as we're in the season, to be doing yard work. Maybe this is just my personal curiosity about you know, I love to get out and garden! Are there any areas of my yard that I should avoid during this time of year when those nymphs are really out and active, just in particular, so I could stay a little bit more safe?
Shyloh Favreau 26:45
Yes, I will say, when you think about where the places are you're most likely to encounter ticks, the short answer is, these days, I would say, be vigilant everywhere. But I will say, you know, but there are more preferred areas you'll find them in tall grass, leaf litter, brush, especially along the edges of wooded areas. And I'll say that different species have slightly different preferences. The black legged tick tends to like moist, shaded wooded areas, while the American dog tick is more common in more open grassy areas. But there is a lot of overlap. So again, the safest answer is to be vigilant anytime you're outside, from anytime it's over 40 degrees all the way through practically until it's snowing. And even still, I don't think it's completely out of the question to not have the possibility of encountering a tick any day in any season on a warmer day. By warmer I only mean 40 degrees, but -
Kendall Kunelius 27:32
Right, yeah, up here.
Shyloh Favreau 27:34
We are in New Hampshire. For example, my mother in law. I'll use her as an example. She was visiting last Thanksgiving, and the walkway where you park your car to where you go into my house, it's not a long walk, just a few feet. Well, she got a tick bite just from that, from walking out of her car into my house.
Kendall Kunelius 27:52
Wow, oh my goodness. During November! It was cold. It got cold fast last year.
Speaker 1 27:58
Yes, which is when the adult black legged deer ticks are active. My point being, it's important to be vigilant. Do your tick checks. Wear your clothes appropriately. And in addition to that, I'll say that there is a wide variety of insect repellents that are available. The CDC recommends using products that contain active ingredients that are specifically registered with the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and we can provide those links in the podcast, wherever you're putting all of those registered products that contain ingredients like DEET Picard and oil of lemon eucalyptus. And there's also an insecticide called permethrin that you can use. And this is not - to keep in mind some of them you apply directly to your skin. Some are meant for your clothing only, so it's important to read up on that information to be safe.
Kendall Kunelius 28:40
The label is the law. Follow the label.
Shyloh Favreau 28:43
Label is the law. I'm currently studying for my pesticide license right now, actually, so that is fresh in my mind. And you can also, you can purchase clothing that comes pretreated with this permethrin that I'm talking about. It's possible. But I'd like to leave with the fact that, again, there's plenty of things you can do that are free. Tick checks, your clothing. But if repellents are something you're interested in, I will say that there was a big study at the University of Rhode Island that found that folks who applied that permethrin to their shoes, just their shoes, were 70% less likely to get a tick bite.
Rebecca Dube 29:11
Wow!
Shyloh Favreau 29:11
Just from their footwear. So even little things that you do make a huge difference in lowering your your chances of getting a tick bite, or even just a tick encounter in general.
Kendall Kunelius 29:23
That's so interesting. Yeah. And I want to reiterate and echo what you were saying, too. You know, I work very closely with my veterinarian for my dog, because we do take her out in grassy areas. Whether it's out in the woods, whether it's out in a grassy area or a field, I always just check with my vet to make sure that I'm using the appropriate formulation or an appropriate product for her. And I would certainly advise anyone who is into livestock here too, to work with your vet on other ways that you can protect your animals from tick bites as well. I'm thinking the larger livestock like horses, cattle, things that you can't really, you know, you might need some other methodologies, some sprays or bumpers with a dust in it, or something of that sort. That's not a recommendation. It's just sometimes, when you're looking at a size differential from people to dogs to sheep and goats, all the way up to cows, the method of application or control may be a little bit different. So it's not a one size fits all approach is maybe what I'm trying to get at.
Shyloh Favreau 30:16
Totally. And I'll also mention that for our tick testing service, we can test a tick from any host. I will say our panel is focused on human pathogens, but like Lyme, for example, it has a wide range of hosts, and we are currently developing a more specific panel for pets and livestock to hopefully be able to have in the near future. But even still, for the big, main ones that will still be covered under the test, when you submit a tick for testing, regardless of, regardless of the host.
Kendall Kunelius 30:42
Awesome. Shyloh, this has been a great you are a great wealth of information. It's been a great session. And you know, so much. This is great, and we've already talked about how people can get in touch with you and further information. You know, of course, we're always open to folks emailing either myself or Rebecca with podcast topic ideas as well. If you have another question that comes out of this episode.
Shyloh Favreau 31:04
Yes, anyone, if you receive questions, send them my way. I also, you know, in addition to doing the tick testing, I provide a lot of tick education across the state for both our government partners and the public. And any way that I can be a help to community groups or different - you know, please don't hesitate to have them reach out to me. We want everybody to be tick safe, right?
Kendall Kunelius 31:24
We do. And I actually had the honor of Shyloh and I were at a Landscape Safety Day that one of our other colleagues put on last week, two weeks ago, and you were doing tick education there. So I think that's another important note to maybe end on. Ticks are equal-opportunity offenders in that way, right? So if you are a group, I love how you just mentioned whether it's to train the trainer or if it's training other people on the safety. But it's not just commercial applicators, it's everyone.
Shyloh Favreau 31:55
No one is immune to getting a tick bite, unfortunately. But it is true.
Rebecca Dube 32:00
All right. Well, thank you, Shyloh,
Shyloh Favreau 32:03
Yes, thank you both!
Rebecca Dube 32:04
and thank you for joining our tick talk, and we'll be talking to you again soon on the next episode of Shared Soil.
Kendall Kunelius 32:16
Shared Soil is a production of University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, an equal opportunity educator and employer. Views expressed on this podcast are not necessarily those of the university, its trustees or its volunteers. Inclusion or exclusion of commercial products in this podcast does not imply endorsement. The University of New Hampshire, US Department of Agriculture and New Hampshire counties cooperate to provide extension programming in the Granite State. Learn more at extension.unh.edu.
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