Advice on fleas and ticks
- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hello
Sorry if this has been discussed before somewhere.
Recently I found two ticks in the hedgehog feeding box we have. They can only have been brought in by the hog, which is visiting the box nightly for food. Cats cannot access the box, and I have never seen rats on our night time camera in our garden let alone go in the box. The two ticks had fed, as their bodies were full.
The hog that I see on our camera videos from night time is *always* scratching itself. For minutes at a time. It’s not just a brief scratch then on off he goes… He’ll sit there for 2 to 3 minutes scratching away, trying to get all bits of his body. So along with the presence of the ticks in the feeding box, I’m wondering if the hog in our garden is suffering too much with fleas/ticks.So my question is … is there anything that I should/could be doing to alleviate the hogs flea/tick annoyance? Is there anything that I could put in it’s hedgehog house that would ease his itchiness? or deter fleas/ticks?
Is there any natural remedy I should/could use?
I’ve read about maybe using a base oil with with an essential oil of some kind.Or can anyone vouch for “Johnsons Small Animal Insect Spray Extra”?
There are two reviews on “thehedgehog.co.uk website” for this product which are completely opposite!Hello Merdeen,
Its a difficult one to get the balance right for hogs as most of them have a tick or two from time to time and they all scratch quite a lot.
I would suggest you immediately remove and destroy any ticks you do find on the ground or around feeding areas etc
If you are looking for some natural options to apply to hog habitats, I would suggest you could try this:
•Boil 4 cups water in a saucepan. Once water boils, remove from heat.
•Add 1 ounce dried rosemary, stirring gently with a spoon.
•Strain the cooled liquid through a strainer into a spray bottle.
•Add three drops each of Lavender Oil, Lemon oil and eucalyptus oil.I wouldn’t suggest spraying the hog with this though – they are very particular about how they smell!
Hi Merdeen
It’s most likely that the ticks in the feeding box fell off a hedgehog. It is very likely that they would have left some eggs in there. So I would give the feed box a good clear out – don’t use chemicals, but if it is wood, use boiling water to kill any eggs, paying particular attention to the joints in the wood, or any cracks. Otherwise the hogs could just pick up more ticks from there later on. If plastic, just give a good clean out. You could try Jan-Marie’s rosemary, etc. for cleaning, but I suspect that might be more of a deterrant than to actually kill tick eggs.
I had a similar problem in a feed box a while back – luckily wooden – and the boiling water seemed to work. Bear in mind that some hogs occasionally have a nap in feed boxes, between snacks, so could easily pick up new ticks there.
Hello
thank you so much for the advice. Just this evening I carefully and quietly checked the hedgehog house as I hadn’t seen the hog for a few days on the trail camera. The hog house was empty and i took the opportunity to clean it out (there was quite a bit of hog poo in there!). On cleaning I also found probably about 20 ticks in there :-S
Some were dead, whilst quite a few others where crawling! I totally emptied it out, and cleaned up as best as I could. Now that I have read these replies I will go at it again tomorrow (given the hog has not returned overnight). I will clean both the hog house and the feeding box (situated in totally different parts of the garden) with both boiling water and I will make up that essential oil spray also and spritz that in there too. The poor hog – I wish I had checked the hoghouse sooner, but since I bought it about 2 months ago the resident had moved in pretty sharpish, and so I thought best to leave it well alone and leave the hog in peace to get on with life 🙁I hope that the hog returns – it might have been too many ticks for him/her to deal with. Will update if that is ok. Many thanks for both your help.
Hi
I have just cleaned my feeding station and found at least half a dozen ticks, some small and two large ones. I always clean it out every day and spray with bird feeder disinfectant, but having just read this, I am now going to give it a good clean with boiling water and make the essential oil spray. Do you think the bird feeder spray is good or bad to use.
Thanks for the advice Nic.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
