Ticks already!

My wife informed me that she took a tick off our female fawn boxer on Monday. The tick was in the beginning stages of digging in so my wife said there was a little bit of bleeding when it came off.
The dog bed is near the indoor woodpile, both are on the hearth of the stove. My guess is that the tick came off a split in the pile and made its way to the dog bed and eventually my girl.

Anyone else with a similar type story with bugs warming up from the splits

 

I'll be using the tick and flea stuff on the dogs in a few days. I usually start that treatment the first of April, although the ticks aren't a huge problem until sometime in May.
I'm on high alert now.

 

I had some black ants wake up from a split once it got next to the stove.

 

Bummer. Any brush around outside? If it was warm enough she could have picked up outside as well.

 

We found some tiny little brown ants around where mothah was keeping the birdseed in the entry way hall. I sprayed a case of cans of ant killin juice until I had a half inch deep on the floor. That ought to git em...

...kidding, kidding...

 

I can imagine the small ant army marching out single file

 

Thats the part that bothered me, we still have over a foot of snow on the ground. Most nights are still around freezing and we are still aways off from seeing the ground. Even our walks at the state park is all on the snow still.
As papadave said, I think I'm going to start their first course of flea and tick now.

 

Good idea IS. We just ordered a new Preventic collar for Giz. Should be here soon. I... hates... ticks...

 

That's about what it was too.

 

Here's your ant squirm factor vid for the monin... I guess ticks aren't so bad...

 

That video actually made the aftertaste of my breakfast spoil in my mouth.

 

Eeeeeeek... ... sorry man...

 

You wanna' get rid of ants?
Get yourself some Terro. Awesome stuff, and doesn't take much.

 

You'd need a couple tri-axel loads for those nasties

 

We have been pulling ticks off the dogs all winter. I thought they went dormant guess not, they were the small deer ticks.

 

We live in an area with very high concentration of ticks and Lyme disease. We have to use tick medicine all year on our pets. Anytime the thermometer gets above freezing the are active. On a happier note, our chickens are extremely effective at eating the tick near our house.

 

What?!
I've never had that happen.....that I'm aware of.
I turn into a maniacal tick finder come spring time. I don't hate much, but ticks are just nasty little bastages and good for nothing. Oh, and I HATE them.
I'll be using my Permethrin spray again this year (it's worked pretty well the last couple years), and if it isn't super effective, I'll get some Sawyer's.
Wife wants to get some Guineas and let 'em roam the yard for tick control, but we're surrounded by woods, so I'm not sure how effective that'll be.

 

Birds will definitely clean up you yard. Not as completely effective in the woods. If you just use the yard, they will be very effective.

 

This has been the worst winter yet. The chickens keep the yard cleaned up, but the dogs like to run the woods. Beware guineas are extremely annoying if you aren't use to having them!