Adult blacklegged ticks (aka deer ticks) spread Lyme disease. Their primary hosts are white-tailed deer, so where you see deer, there are likely ticks.
With more deer come more ticks. The deer themselves won’t make you sick, but the ticks attached to them might. So to keep ticks out of your yard, it’s a good idea to also try to keep deer out of your yard.
Deer ticks require large mammals to feed and mate, and white-tailed deer are the host they rely on most (hence the name). A single deer can carry dozens or even hundreds of adult ticks. After feeding on the deer, a female tick drops off into the leaf litter and lays thousands of eggs. More deer moving through an area means more adult ticks getting the meal they need to reproduce, which means more eggs, and a bigger tick population the following year.
Deer also spread ticks around. As they go from yard to yard along their trails, ticks fall off and that seeds the tick population in places where they were not previously present. That’s why woodland edges and garden beds, even if they’re not close to a forest or park, tend to become tick hot spots.
For a deer-heavy area like the Hudson Valley, where suburban deer numbers are high and natural predators are few, this matters. A yard that deer regularly pass through is a yard that's being seeded with ticks. Making a property less attractive to deer, with fencing or deer-resistant plantings, helps. This can reduce their visits, and treating the tick zones along the edges targets the ticks they leave behind.
If you're tired of fighting ticks in a yard the deer treat like a highway, Mosquito Squad of Northern Westchester can help. Mosquito Squad treats the shaded, brushy edges where deer ticks gather, helping protect your family with up to 90% reduction in pest activity on a recurring 21-day cycle.
