Hi was wondering what you are using to make sure any ticks on the carcass are going to die when yo hang your deer at home, do you use a spray to spray before you put the carcass into your vehicle. If so what do you use. The reason iam asking is be iam starting to see more ticks on the deer from my area
Ticks
- Thread starter billm
- Start date
Nope don’t spray anything , ticks are part and parcel of this game , one estate I stalk has a very high tick burden
So what do you do
Put them in the chiller then skin them
HonestJohn
Well-Known Member
They can live for weeks on a carcass. Only solution is that YOU have protection via gloves, rolled up sleeves and permethrin treated butchering clothing, check yourself and shower after. I have started wearing cheap clear rain ponchos (£1 each), when butchering, easy to spot the wee bastards and you just take off and bin after
Permethrin how Dangerous is it
HonestJohn
Well-Known Member
But not if they’re attached to your gonads
HonestJohn
Well-Known Member
Not at all, as long as treated on the exterior of your clothing
I was throwing up an idea with a mate who has a high tic burden and we came up with a idea of low voltage heat pads and ant sticky pads as they are attracted to heat so he was going to hang them in the groin area in the chiller to see if they would move to the heat!
This ^^^
Rake Aboot
Well-Known Member
I’ve never tried to treat a carcass for ticks. What’s the point ?
Bear in mind ticks on the carcass have likely fed already and will usually drop and moult before finding a new host and feeding again.
You are more likely to get a tick in you from the grass than the deer
Or one which drops in your vehicle and waits for you
Obviously some of the ticks on your deer might have just arrived and not fed and some males do seem to stick to one host for several cycles so this is not 100%, but generally speaking it wouldn't be the ticks on the deer I'd be worried about
And there is absolutely nothing you could spray on a carcass to kill them and still have an edible carcass
Oddly enough, the last half a dozen carcasses I’ve shot (fallow, roe muntjac) have all shown negligible and quite often, no ticks - coincidentally, AFTER I had restarted supplying tick/blood samples to the UKHSA STUDY 
Those animals were from widely dispersed areas (Sussex, Glos and Wilts) that had in the Summer been absolutely full of the bastards. To me, seems to be more than the usual seasonal variation and I wonder whether the prolonged wet has worked in our favour.
Those animals were from widely dispersed areas (Sussex, Glos and Wilts) that had in the Summer been absolutely full of the bastards. To me, seems to be more than the usual seasonal variation and I wonder whether the prolonged wet has worked in our favour.While a fully fed tick will go to moult, if the tick has just started feeding, they can reattach, but I agree, most ticks will be off the site, not the deer.
No spray will be effective without making the carcass inedible
Just hang and chill to normal meat levels (7C or less) and whilst they are still alive, the ticks are very unlikely to be active enough to reattach
Devon Stalker
Well-Known Member
Same as this but I use the vets shoulder length gloves
I have a plastic bag in a bin below the animal as I skin it, so it goes straight into the bag, then to the freezer, then disposed of afterward. And ticks that fall off, go straight into the bag.
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