These boys came for a visit one morning. I've never seen males here before, I didn't know they hung out together. Slammy says they were fighting over the birdfeeder.The next day, Jr. found this on his neck. It hadn't been on too long and he pulled it off himself. 
I looked up deer ticks and I don't think this is one. It looks like a Dermacentor andersoni, or Rocky Mountain wood tick, which is not a vector of Lyme disease. It's a vector of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and other diseases, which can be fatal.
On the positive side, I found out that guinea fowl are a good control measure, clearing an area of ticks lickity split, and yellow jackets too! They also make good watch dogs and prefer roosting in the trees so they don't even need housing. I thought we were done with fowl, but maybe not...
It's 72 degrees and windy at 12:00 pm.
3 comments:
I love seeing the bucks in velvet. Ticks, ewwwwwwwwwwww. I'd get the guinea fowl in a hurry. Wonder if pheasants would do the trick, we've got a couple dozen and counting.
Those guinea fowl do look cool (well it kind of looks like an old teacher of mine), and I like that they roost in trees, but it says they eat bees too. That's not good. Plus they're noisy.
Dermacentor andersoni sounds strangely like "dementor", which is appropriate, because they will suck soul. Glad Jr. escaped a kiss.
I'd like to have pheasants, they are a lot prettier than guineas but are they coyote proof?
Yeah, D, I don't think the bee eating would be too good, either, since there already seems to be a shortage.
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