These tubes contain treated cotton that local mice naturally gather to build their nests. While the mice remain completely unharmed, the treatment specifically targets the larval and nymphal ticks living in those nests.
Tick tubes take advantage of two facts about how ticks live. The first is that immature ticks depend on small rodents to live. Larval and nymphal blacklegged ticks mostly feed on white-footed mice. Break that link and you can reduce both the number of ticks and the share of them carrying disease. The second is that mice line nests with whatever soft material happens to be readily available. So if you give them treated cotton, they’ll likely use it.
To use tick tubes, you put them down where mice travel. A lot of times, tick tubes will go along stone walls, woodpiles, brush lines, and under sheds. Apply them once in the spring and again in late summer to wipe out ticks during both their larval and nymphal stages.
What tick tubes do not do is clear the adult ticks already questing in your yard. Adults feed on deer, not mice, so they fall outside the tube's reach. Tubes are a supplement to barrier treatment of the yard's shaded edges, not a replacement for it.
It takes time to see results. You’ll reduce the next season’s tick population by treating this season’s rodent hosts. The benefit accumulates over years rather than showing up next weekend. It also works best on properties that have a real rodent habitat, which is the case for many Franklin and Framingham properties that back up to the woods. A property with no mouse habitat has nothing for the tubes to work through.
If ticks are a recurring problem on your property, Mosquito Squad of Franklin & Framingham can help. Mosquito Squad offers tick tubes along with treatment of the shaded edges where ticks wait for a host. This will help you protect your family with up to 90% reduction in pest activity on a recurring cycle.
