Are they to be found in the UK at all?

… not that I’m looking.

apparently they love getting up peoples shorts in the quantocks 😯

tights ARE the way forward 😆

You sometimes find them knocking about on my cat over the summer months

Yup… they’re here! Had my first one this year.
After i killed the bugger i was told your supposed to take them in their whole state to the doc to get them tested!

lol….that was between you and me Ali

Loads on the Quantocks, but they’re a bit choosey who they latch on to, I’ve been bitten by one in twenty plus years.

lol….that was between you and me Ali

shhhhh, no one needs to know that 😉

not alway very big either (untill they suck you dry)

found that fecker in the back of may knee !

well there’s NO WAY i am wearing shorts at the q’s! 😯 that’s grim of grim

Good Grief they’re tiny!

tiny in that pic but after a week of blood sucking they reach upto 5-6mm across the body ! Fav spots for them on the Qs are the great bear and the trig point grass at beacon hill.Oh and anyahere theres deep bracken. Check yourself !

I’ve had loads of ticks…….

shame they wurn’t at skooool

Aleigh WTFU! 🙄

After i killed the bugger i was told your supposed to take them in their whole state to the doc to get them tested!

Bullshit.

Woke up this very morning, had a scratch at something near my armpit and heard something fall on the floor. Looked down, and it was a smallish tick. Rolled it up in a bit of tissue and flushed it.

I assume I picked it up in Keilder on Sunday….

The dog frequently seems to pick up big brown fellas – they look like the louse you see in films about POW camps.

I’m taking precautions from now on Andy – I can’t be doing with ticks!

Before I started using insect repellent I used to pick up one or two every Quanticks outing. Usually ride Great Bear and end up at Beacon Hill at some point, though I’d never put 2 and 2 together before…

It’s not the tick you need to worry about but the Limes Disease and Tick Borne Encephalitis you can get from them .
You can be innoculated against that but it’ll cost . I have it as I go to Austria quite alot and it’s a real tick fest there!

my cats bring home the odd tick, this is the Cotswolds. So far I have never found one on me.

I had to pull one out of the back of my cats neck a while back. Really nasty things. I then found the what I think was the source when doing some gardening. A hedgehog which had been holed up in a an overgrown patch. It was absolutely covered in them, and appeared to have died recently. They look a bit like those white yoghurt covered raisins except for the eight wee black legs sticking out of one end. Don’t think they would taste like them though. Yeeeeuuucchhh! They are another creature that makes you think “if there is a god, why did he make these wee feckers” (same as wasps).

I’ve had quite a few over the years, from the N York Moors to the Quantocks. The one above is pretty small, they do get larger.

You can buy special tick tweezers from the chemist, or just smother them in butter or vaseline (it blocks their spiracles) then twist off. Sterilse the area afterwards, as well. If you leave them until you get to a doc, you’re increasing your chances of catching something.

If they land on a leg, they will climb upwards until a knicker-line stops them. Check your groin!

Mendips too. One rainy june finding trail through bracken, I had 12 young ones in various places.

Nasty

Solution

If you ride in Exmoor a few times then chances are you’ll find a tick or two on you at the end of a ride.

Ticks suck!

Loads in the New Forest I was un-lucky enough to get Lymes disease last year. Most unpleasent.

Always do a check after every walk/ride now.

They seem to be quite localised then.

I’ve never picked one up in all my years cycling, (Or doing anything outdoors for that matter,) mainly in the Midlands, Wales, Shropshire, The Peak and the odd jaunt to the Lakes.

Or have I just been lucky?

Taking a piss in the ferns is always a great time for picking them up. My mate got one too close to his tackle for comfort- cue comments about which was larger when swelled with blood….

My cats often come in with ticks, the armoured deer variety. Horrible little things – this thread is making my skin crawl.

Praps you should add one of these to your kit:

That looks like a handy piece of kit. Lasooing the buggers with a bit of cotton is a nightmare.

It has occured to me that lots of the comments on here seem to be from westcountry riders 😯

loads of ticks in lordswood and farley mount, picked up a few last year but never picked up any in swinley forest area or at any races in that area.
also not found any repelant that actually works against ticks, not tried autan though..

Using your finger just gently rub the Tick in a circular motion and it will fall out in about 60 secs. Theory is that it makes it dizzy and it lets go ,not sure of that, but it does work on the dog.

I carry one of them green detickulators in the summer months. Bracken in warm, damp weather is the worst, that’s why last year was a bad one.

You can buy special tick tweezers from the chemist, or just smother them in butter or vaseline (it blocks their spiracles) then twist off. Sterilse the area afterwards, as well. If you leave them until you get to a doc, you’re increasing your chances of catching something.

DONT Use Vaseline etc…. it causes them to be disturbed and can make them put nasties in you rather than suck blood. Gives you a higher chance of Lymes disease etc then!

I pulled one out of my partner after we’d been sat down having our sarnies on one of the Scottish Islands. If you hold something hot next to them (fag end or heated up pen knife) they release their hold and you can pull them out whole with some tweezers.

I’d actually previously noticed a few of them crawling on me and thought they were some sort of spider! I’ve not come across them before in Yorkshire.

Dont think you have a big problem here in UK. Years ago when still in South Africa I got bitten by a tick ( from a stray cat we adopted ) and got realy ill. We call it tick bite fever back in SA. Had the most horendous headaches and fever for 10 days. Fever was so bad I was hallucinating from it! Recovered after a dose of Antibiotics, still have the mark on my leg where I was bitten.

Mrtrotter “If you hold something hot next to them (fag end or heated up pen knife) they release their hold and you can pull them out whole with some tweezers. “

after they’ve puked their bacteria ridden guts into you…

I found one on my leg last summer. It’d been there for a couple of days before I noticed and yanked it out. I read up on it afterwards and turns out it’s worth beig careful pulling them out so’s not to detach the body and leave the tiny head and teeth (or whatever it uses to suck on you) in the skin. Hence those deticker sticks.

Ticks are everywhere, but it’s Lyme Disease you have to be careful of. Only a small number carry it, but it’s regional – IIRC New Forest areas and some others have a higher proportion of the tick population that carry it.

Worth looking out for cuz it can be a pretty nasty condition.

Worth looking out for cuz it can be a pretty nasty condition.

That it is! I had it for a little over a month and it was awful!

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=398

excellent article

I’ve had quite a few locally (North York Moors), but I didn’t get one last year at all.

For removal best results have been using tweezers to grasp as close to the skin as possible and then pull gently, but firmly. I’ve got some of them detickulators, but haven’t had need to use them yet.

I’ve been tested for Lymes once when one bite reacted a bit (comes up like a little bullseye), but was negative. An area either does or doesn’t have Lyme Disease in the local tick population and most local docs will know.

Shaved legs reduces attachment (IME), also insect repellant of course. Also just watch where you stop and sit. Majority of mine have been during “exploration” off the beaten track – ie riding ot pushing through undergrowth – or I think from sitting on handy logs and stumps (which happen to be surrounded by foot high grass etc. They climb to the end of vegetation and wait for something to brush past apparently.

Usually, I get a few every year here in West Central Scotland and they have been getting worse over the past few years… I have one of those ‘Tick Twister’ remover thingies and it is excellent.

The wee black **** in the picture with the match head is a sheep tick, I believe. Deer ticks are a different ball game – brownish and a fair bit bigger. Interestingly, a pal who lives in the Trossachs was out walking near Aberfoyle last week when he happened to spot a deer tick in a long blade of grass. He had a look around the area and stopped counting at 20! By the sounds of it this year might be the worst yet! 😕