This message is from: Marsha Jo Hannah <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Carol <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The vet says that Patrick seems to be a "tick magnet"! Is there > something about the Fjord breed that attracts the ticks?
It seems to be an individual trait. My old Fjord mare, Nansy, is apparently attractive to just about every kind of bug---she always has more flies, or mosquitos, or ticks on her than our two Fjord geldings combined. Don't know if this is just because she's a "sweet old thing", or related to her having Cushings, or what. When we lived in California (in the mountains south of San Francisco), we had major problems with ticks, some of which carried Lyme disease. I found that, when I wormed once a month with ivermectin, I didn't see any big fat ticks (only little, dead ones) attached to them for about 3 weeks, then I'd gradually start to see a few more ticks on them, until I wormed again, whereupon the ticks would die and fall off. I had a vet tell me that, theoretically, ivermectin couldn't stay in an equine's system more than a couple of days, but he also admitted that several of his clients were reporting the same multi-week efficacy against ticks that I was seeing. Literature on Lyme disease suggests that the ticks have to be attached and feeding for at least a day before they transmit it (don't know how it is for other tick-borne diseases). This makes me think that anything that kills ticks as they bite the horse is probably good for the horse.... Marsha Jo Hannah Murphy must have been a horseman-- [EMAIL PROTECTED] anything that can go wrong, will! 15 mi SW of Roseburg, Oregon
