Sorry, I don't mean to change the subject from our cats do deer, but..... I have to confess to you that I am very heavily involved in trying to remove all the unfair blame for black-legged ticks/Lyme disease cast on deer. Scientific studies have shown that the number of deer have nothing to do with the number of ticks, and Lyme disease. In Fairfield County, CT (where I live), deer densities are a lot higher per sq/mi than in Windham County, CT - yet, incidents of LD are a lot higher where the deer numbers are lower! When many deer are killed, the assumption is, wrongly, that the number of ticks will decrease! It only means that the remaining deer will have more ticks on them. When a deer is killed, ticks don't die with them (just as when an animal that is infested with fleas dies, the fleas merely jump off onto other animals.) As soon as the blood cools, parasites leave. The ONLY solution is to go after the ticks! Black-legged ticks do not require only deer to fulfill their life-cycle to lay eggs - any midsized mammal will serve that purpose (horses in horse country, cattle on farms, etc, family dogs and even opportune Homo sapiens). Even though one might want to lay blame on the dozens of small mammals and even birds that carry the Lyme disease-causing spirochete bacterium, WITHOUT black-legged ticks, the transmission of the bacterium could be accomplished without them! Therefore, the ONLY solution to eliminating LD is getting rid of the black-legged ticks! And again, I'm not sure that anyone has seriously considered DE for doing that! It would stand to reason that if DE destroys the outer waxy covering of fleas, dehydrating them, why wouldn't it do the same on ticks? Although, it seems that fleas are harder to crunch and kill than ticks when they are engorged fully with blood....
-----Original Message----- From: felvtalk-boun...@felineleukemia.org [mailto:felvtalk-boun...@felineleukemia.org] On Behalf Of Sally Davis Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 8:57 PM To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Pet Armor Ticks are the worst near wooded areas and in the woods. They are in tall > weeds, and shrubs. We have lots of deer and deer ticks, the smaller ticks > carry lyme disease. It even the nymph stage can tramsmit lyme. The deer > population has exploded here and so have the ticks. Last year the cats would > get in a nest of then and be covered with the small nymph stage. They would > engorge and I would have hundreds crawling on my bed. I uses a lint roller > and duct tape to get them up, but what a pain. They are not as bad this year > but I started using the Frontline earlier. Last year I had to rush out and > get it where I could. I did not get the cheapest price, but I still bought > the dog size. > As for Revolution I was not going to go there but I did not have a problem with it. I have heard it is safer then the other fles controls, because it works in a different way. I am not doubting what your vet says. Poison is poison. Sometimes a cat will lose hair where it is applied and it says that. I did have this happen with one of my FeLV cats. He was the cat who probably had Feline infectious anemia which is transmitted by fleas so for him better to make sure there are no fleas it only takes one flea to infect a cat, and a feline leukemia postive cat cannot fight off the infection. I have not used the nematodes but I have been interested in doing so. I do not have a lawn and fleas tend to live in grassy areas. They just feed on our pets. Sally _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
