This message is from: Jon Ofjord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
We have noticed something interesting about the ticks found on horses at our farm.
Several years ago we had a Quarter horse boarded here that came in with tiny ticks on him in the winter - these were mostly the small deer ricks or moose ticks, not wood ticks. His owner would find them on him even in the dead of winter. Where he was picking them up was a mystery. We thought that perhaps he was picking them up when he was out riding through the winter grasses. This horse seemed to be the only one that attracted the ticks as we could not find any on the other horses.
This year, we have a mostly white paint horse boarded here and he has these small ticks on him too! His pasture mate - another sorrel QH does not! I found a couple of the ticks on my mule, but absolutely NONE on the Fjords kept in the same paddock!
If there are any budding entomologists out there that can explain this phenomenon, I'd be interested in hearing your theory. These ticks are found mostly during the winter, they are very small - the size of a grain of rice, and not much bigger when engorged. The Fjords do not seem to attract them as we have not found any on our Fjords. My friend thinks they are coming in on the hay, but all horses are fed the same hay. Since my friend found the ticks on her horse - about a month and a half ago - we have been looking for evidence of them on the other critters too. Perhaps the pheromones given off by certain horses attract the ticks to certain horses and not to others? We do not have a real problem with wood ticks, but do occasionally pick up a few when we go through the woods in the spring - both on us and the horses.
Mary Ofjord The FjordHorse List archives can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw
