What I Keep On Hand For Ticks. With tick season fast approaching with the fall weather, I’m going through what I keep on hand for them!
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Ticks have been a new thing for me to learn about this year.
We really never saw them much back in Montana, it’s just too dry and it gets super cold in the winter. So it wasn’t a great environment for them to thrive in. One of the few perks of freezing cold snowy winters I suppose!
So when we moved to East Texas this last February I had to quickly learn what I needed to have on hand for them.
It is super rainy here, especially in the spring and fall. And ticks really thrive in this warm wet climate.
During the spring and fall is when I am super vigilant about checking the kids for them and using preventative measures for them. This summer I calmed down about it a lot because it was hot enough that they seemed to go away, I didn’t see a single one all summer.
I learned a TON from The Holistic Mother on Instagram and she has a whole course on ticks that I highly recommend you take if you live somewhere with ticks.
We need to arm ourselves with knowledge and supplies.
I know ticks are scary. The thought of one of your family members getting bit by one can keep a mama up worrying!
But worrying won’t do anything.
That’s something I need to tell myself 100 times a day and then use a hammer to get inside my head with it. I am one of the biggest worriers of us all! But I’m working on it 😉
What is in my tick basket?
This spring I put together a huge basket of all my tick supplies and I keep it on top of the refrigerator for easy access.
And by popular demand I’m sharing the list of items inside it!!
It’s a frequently asked about topic on my instagram so now everything is here all in one place to easily reference and find!
Disclaimer: none of this is medical advice. I am not a doctor or medical professional. This is just what I do and keep on hand personally.
Preventative supplies:
Dog and cat flea and tick collars.
These aren’t the most holistic collars out there. But making sure the dogs aren’t carrying ticks in to where my children live was more important to me than making sure the dogs had the most healthy collar option out there. These have worked super well!
Wild organic Cistus Incanus loose leaf tea
All of us take this tea during tick season and I’ll even give some to the dogs and cats.
B complex (Energi+) Use code WILSONHOMESTEAD for a discount
I like to have all of us take B vitamins as a preventative (we take this all year because it’s helpful for so many things besides tick prevention). I learned awhile ago about how ticks don’t like to bite people as well who have good levels of B vitamins vs. people who are deficient in those.
For tick bites:
Super easy for pulling ticks out without worrying as much that the head will be left behind. I’ve used these on people, dogs and my cow Lois.
To learn more about how to use all these supplies I cannot recommend The Holistic Mother enough! She is the OG tick expert!
What we did when my brother got a tick bite
It was early February when we first moved down here from Montana. My mom, brother and sister drove with us and stayed with us for a few weeks to help us settle in. My brother, Caleb, went off to explore in our woods one day without getting cedarcide preventative spray put on and he had a tick bite his thigh. He found it that night and my mom called me frantically from their air b&b asking what they should do about it. So I rounded up what I had so far of my tick kit and headed over there.
I didn’t have the Andrographis tincture in the mail yet so I used some Argentyn 23 silver and oregano essential oil to put right on the bite. Then I made a poultice with some bentonite clay and argentyn 23 and put a band aid over it. I left him with some extra and had him re-apply it every 3 hours until the next day. I also had him take 3 to 5 pellets of Ledum every 3 hours for the first day, then twice a day for a whole week.
We watched it super close for any rashes or weird rings to appear or any other symptoms like fever. Thankfully none of that happened! We also sent the tick into a lab so they could test it for Lyme disease. Praise God it came back negative! But if it hadn’t we may have considered doing Japanese Knotwood and/or regular antibiotics preventatively because Lyme is not something I want to mess around with!
Thankfully we have not yet had to deal with any other bites besides that one. But at least I have my supplies at the ready just in case!
Additional notes
- I also have some mini containers of these in a drawstring bag that I keep in my purse so I can use them when we are at someone else’s house if needed.
- In the spring and fall I also do nightly tick checks on all the children. Especially in their hair where ticks could hide pretty easily and go undetected for days.
I hope seeing my list of what I keep on hand for ticks was helpful!
And blessings!
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