A single female tick can lay a couple thousand eggs at once, so it takes very few ticks to seed a large population in one season.
It’s not in your head. Ticks can feel like they come out of nowhere when the weather turns, and there are a lot of reasons for that. The difference between “we never had ticks” and “they’re everywhere” can close in a week.
It is hard to overstate the absurd pace at which ticks can reproduce. One female blacklegged tick can drop 1,500 to 2,000 eggs at a time. Most won’t become adults, to be sure, but only a small proportion need to in order for it to be your problem.
Ticks need a blood meal at each life stage, and the animals that supply those meals also spread ticks around the landscape. Mice and chipmunks are great hosts for ticks. Deer feed and transport the adults, who carry dozens or even hundreds at a time and drop them off in your yard. Sometimes ticks can even hitch a ride on birds.
As if that were not enough, ticks also have the ability to survive through winter by various means. Even when the weather gets cold, ticks can use leaf litter and snowpack like large blankets. That allows them to go dormant and survive over the winter. And if they do that, when they wake up and reproduce, you could have a huge problem by spring.
If you're tired of watching a few ticks turn into an infestation, Mosquito Squad of Metro Detroit can help. Mosquito Squad treats the common places where ticks breed and wait. This helps protect your family with up to 90% reduction in pest activity on a recurring 21-day cycle.
