Tips to Avoid/Prevent Tick Exposure
- Avoid tall grasses and shrubby areas, favourite habitats of ticks. Keep lawns mowed regularly.
- Personal protection includes wearing long pants tucked into socks, long sleeve shirts and hats, and repellants containing DEET can be sprayed on outer clothing.
- Careful examination of your person and pets following exposure to potential tick habitats. Use a wide flea comb on your pets following an outing to remove any ticks not yet attached.
- Discourage deer and other wild animals from your yard and home.
How to remove a tick:
Since it takes a tick a few hours to become fully attached, pay close attention to Tip 3 (above). The best way to remove them is to get rid of them before they have a chance to "latch on".
If a tick becomes attached, use tweezers to carefully grasp the body of the tick as close to the skin as possible. Pull slowly to allow the tick to release it's mouthparts prohibiting breakage within the skin. Avoid twisting or turning the tick because this could also cause the mouth parts to be broken off. If the head or any part of the mouth parts are lost, species identification becomes more difficult and the risk of the bite becoming infected increases.
DO NOT use matches, cigarettes, pins, or gasoline to attempt to remove the tick. This may only irritate the tick into spitting up contents of it's stomach into the host. The use of Vaseline or other oil products is not recommended, because it may take hours to suffocate a tiny oil coated tick.
Following the removal of the tick wash the area thoroughly and apply an antiseptic, such as alcohol. If infection occurs, contact your doctor.
The Department of Natural Resources, in conjunction with the NS Department of Health, is currently undertaking a province-wide tick survey. We are very interested in all ticks collected in Nova Scotia off pets and people.
How to handle ticks after removal:
Once ticks are removed, place in a water tight container. Label containers with a permanent marker. Documentation of local, date collected, host and collector greatly aids to a proper identification. Also indicate whether the host has been traveling and if so, where. Wash hands and tweezers thoroughly with warm soapy water after handling the ticks.
All tick specimens can be forwarded to any NS Department of Natural Resources office or the Museum of Natural History in Halifax for identification.
More Information:
- For more complete information on health issues relating to the blacklegged tick, please visit the NS Department of Health Promotion and Protection website.
- Colour PDF on the Blacklegged Tick
- More extensive information on the Blackegged Tick (Formerly called the Deer Tick)