How can I Find a Tick Nest?

What does a tick nest look like?

We actually get this question a lot. Simple answer is, No, there is no such thing as a tick nest. No matter how hard you look for one, you will not find one.

While ticks do not have specific nests, a female tick can lay 1,000+ eggs at a time and they are often in a mass, but having a nest is not the actual case.  However, it is true ticks go through four stages in their life cycle.

  1. Egg- approximately 1,000 eggs are laid by a single female, the eggs do not do anything only develop into the larval (seed ticks) stage.
  2. The Seed Ticks join to a small host (rabbit, chipmunk, etc.) and feed until they are ready to become a nymph.  During this stage they continue to grow and mostly suck blood. Once they have detached from the small host and are looking for their second host, that is the time to target them with Stop The Bites!.
  3. The Nymph stage lasts for varying times(depending on species, humidity and temperatures). At this stage they often find a second host, usually bigger than the first (opossum, racoon, etc.) and remain on the host until ready to become an adult. During this stage when they are questing for a larger host, that is when you can treat with Stop The Bites! and eliminate them.
  4. Finally the adult attaches to a bigger host (deer, dog, person) and remains on that host until it breeds and lays a new batch of eggs.

In stages seed, nymph, and host, they can transmit disease to the host, which in turn can then be passed on to the next host through a blood meal.  Many hosts are not susceptible to the disease but are carriers of the disease.  As a matter of fact deer do not get Lyme disease only carry the organism.

Full tick lifecycle can be 2 months to 2 years depending on the climate and the species.

Deer tick

 

An adult deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) sits on a leaf. USDA photo by Scott Bauer.

Have you seen something that looked like a tick nest? What did you do with it? Comment below – 

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