Oh how I wish!

I would love to get into raising poultry. Alas, I fear that fowl in the garden would run afoul of neighborhood sensibilities.


But one day, on my dream farm...


Sort of apropos; I remember reading years ago about an enterprising farmer (ZH? SG?) who rented out his runner ducks, who over the course of a day ate all the slugs they could find in your garden. I wonder what happened with that business?

Our vet suggested smearing our cat with coconut oil.

Cat hated it. Ticks still bit, but he smelled like a tropical island...

I use linseed oil (recommended by a homeopath whose dog boards with me) and a holistic mixture of garlic, echinacea and apple cider vinegar which I order from Ireland for my clients. I also make up and spray a mix of lavender, apple cider vinegar, water, rose geranium on legs before forest walks (which incidentally smells lovely!). I was speaking to a dog owner today who has an amber collar and a tick medallion for her dog and has been very happy this year.

The last couple of weeks have been brutal in Baselland.
I'm pulling a tick a day off my spaniel, this is despite increasing the frequency of the spot on (Advantix K9 II) to every 3 weeks and spraying him with Martec Pet Care Antiparasit every few days.
He is in the water and woods/fields every day though.

The Bravecto kills ticks alright, but only after a few hours of blood sucking has taken place, up to 24 I think, so that kind of defeats the object.
Also it's a pesticide, and making your dog eat a pesticide so it poisons their blood to kill the ticks, doesn't quite sound right.
That said, if it kills the little biters before any diseases transmit, maybe it's the lesser of the evils.

I'm off to the vet tomorrow, I'll ask them what the latest tactics are.
I've never tried him with the collar, maybe I'll give it a go and remove it prior to the river madness.

I saw this thread pop on my feed.

I read the first posts.

"HA! This is how you notice this is not a parenting group, otherwise someone would have already advised some essential oils or some homeopathic hocus-pocus".

Turns to page 2.

Crap.




My mom uses frontline on her cats. She tried different ones, but they were not as reliable. Not sure if the canine is as good as the feline, however.

Forgot to mention:

It's called "Rent en Ent"

http://www.oechslin.eu/joomla/index....en/rent-en-ent

https://www.schweizerbauer.ch/tiere/...ner--9919.html

Thanks for the links!

After snipping a couple hundred of the slimy critters this morning, as I do most mornings, I'd be tempted to give the ducks a try. (I have a fair bit o' work to do on young Robin Goodfellow's recall first, though...)

But back to ticks:

Following a cerebrovascular event we are playing it ultra safe with all things neurological at the moment, and so the vet has recommended that - at least for now - Hooligan should avoid the drugs that are the active ingredients in most parasiticides. If I get the OK to put her back on a preventative I will do so.

Unfortunately we are left without much in the way of alternatives that pass scientific rigor.

My question about trying something like nematodes on the lawn to try to reduce the tick population in the garden is an admitted long shot, an attempt to address the issue from the other side.

Hanging out in the garden seems to be helping her QOL and thus recovery, so I don't want to restrict her outdoor time.

For now, it's a thorough check after every outing.

D*mn ticks.

Is there a proper insecticide that you can spray on the borders?

We have a TickLess ultrasonic tick and flea repellent for our Shiba, on the recommendation of his breeder, he only wears it (and his collar) outdoors. We saw no nasties last year when he was a pup, and nothing so far this year, though ticks are not quite so rife here in the Netherlands. Maybe one of these would help Hooligan?

It has to be said though, that other dogs that play with ours tend to regard his pendant as a handy chew toy so beware of roughhousing, it can get expensive replacing the pendants

My vet is still recommending Bravecto along with a fingertip search after every outing, as an alternative to spot on etc for 'high risk' dogs.

Bravecto kills the ticks in 'a few' hours, however the ticks need to be on the dog for 48 hours before any diseases get transmitted, as they need to 'wake up' in the tick first once it starts drinking the blood.
So this is the safety margin. He also says he prescribes it very often, and has never had negative feedback.

He also said, with regular care and treatment, for every one tick found on the dog, dozens are likely to have been repelled.

So for me, I'll carry on with the 3 weekly Advantix, spray for the ears and face (applied with care to avoid the eyes) and the daily investigations.

I asked about the amber beads, he said, they work perfectly well for dogs that never come into contact with ticks.

In the Zurioberland 2018 seems a much better year for ticks (ie fewer).

From March to July 2017 we were removing up to 6 ticks a day from our long-haired cat. This despite Frontline and a sonic tick collar he wore permanently.

This year ticks didn't start until April and Frontline and Tic-Clip, which seems total hocus-pocus we are down to 3 or 4 a week, usually small and not yet attached.

Also, we have seen more slow worms than in the last 10 years this year...

I just checked Bravecto in Vetpharm, and it says that caution should be used with dogs with known epilepsy.

http://www.vetpharm.uzh.ch/perldocs/index_t.htm

H. has had mild epilepsy for going on 9 years now, with little consequence to her daily life. But the stroke set off a series of reactive seizures, so epi is now much more of a concern. She is on pheno now.

It's a question of balancing risks.

D*mn ticks.

I`ve been using cumin oil drops on the food. Prior to using this my dog had a total of 4 ticks in May. In the last 2 weeks no ticks. Will see how it goes.

Rookie and Lilly were prescribed Bravecto by their vet last year, which has proven to be extremely effective.


Meloncolie, please give your babies a big hug from Rookie, Lilly and myself.


Wishing you all well.

Bravecto here this year and it's working better than all other products we've used so far, even better than the Seresto collars and way better than the useless Scalibor collars.

We have had to stop using it on one dog though as he seems to have an odd reaction to it, both others are fine with it so it's correct to be careful with this product.

Someone shared this one with me and thought of you:

https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s4/page/us...sty-pests-8076

If you don't mind, what was the reaction?

My 3 weekly Advantix and the Martec seems to be working, just need something against the grass seeds now.

Would be very interested to know as well.

---

So far - knock wood - we seem to be staying on top of things with fingertip searches only. Double-coated mutts - gotta love 'em.

Heffalump and Robin Goodfellow seem to be doing well with Frontline - again, knock wood - so we are sticking with that for them.

(Hooligan has just come in from her morning constitutional, so it's fingertip search time...)

Well I use sun tan oil from Garnier. They hate it.

Hi, when we have used Bravecto on one of our dogs he starts to head twitch. Basically he sort of constantly looks over his shoulder (usually right shoulder) as if someone just lightly touched him there. He can do this for several minutes until we distracted him. Of course we cannot say 100% for sure that Bravecto was the cause but having used it twice and twice he's had this reaction was enough to avoid it on this dog, both others are fine with it. Not sure it's a huge issue and maybe we are be over cautious.

As for the grass seeds.... I've just clipped back our Cocker's feet so we can see what's going on better. They can be a nightmare and just caught one about a week back that wasn't too bad, could have been far worse if left longer.