Natural tick control needed again

I noticed this evening that there are a few ticks in the pig pen again. This is the first time any have shown up in almost 2 months, which is surprisingly good for southern Oregon. This seems to be tick central! It must this weeks unseasonable heat that brought them on.

Fortunately we now have an easy, effective, inexpensive and non-poisonous control method! We have a large bag (50 lbs) of food grade diatomaceous earth and a hand powder sprayer.  The diatomaceous earth is apparently composed dried skeletons of tiny "pre-historic" water animals. Food grade means it is absolutely pure and therefore is OK to ingest by animal or human. It works through a mechanical method. When the extremely fine powder is "fogged" onto the pigs, the powder sticks to their hair and skin. When the tick crawl around it sticks to them. Any bug with an exoskeleton like ticks literally gets ground to bits by the sharp edges of the tiny crystal in the powder. They bugs actually fall apart or at least dry out within 2 days after treatment.

We dust the animals and the bedding and within 48 hours not a live tick is to be found. After a a few days we dust again to get any newly hatched eggs, and if necessary a third treatment in another few days.  If the pigs ingest any it is actually healthy as it can kill any internal parasites and supplies minerals. It is actually recommended to mix a small amount is stored food to kill insects that would live in the food.

This product also works well to control  fleas that attack dogs and cats. It is a great general purpose insect control product with no negative side effects on the animals or environment.

One word of warning: NEVER use the diatomaceous earth intended for filters such as swimming pool filters. This type is NOT the same product and can be very harmful to animals and humans. ONLY USE FOOD GRADE diatomaceous earth to control insects.