> you squeeze their contents through their mouths

Whenever someone recommends removal using tweezers, I wonder if the person offering this advice has ever removed a well attached tick. I’ve found tools like a Tick Tornado work better, but are still problematic with smaller ticks.

https://www.zenpetusa.com/tick-tornado

We always covered them with coal-tar ointment (ichthyol / ichthammal) for a few minutes. They detached without a problem after that, with nothing more than a subtle hint from the tweezers.

Just breaking out the tweezers and yanking away was most emphatically not recommended. It can leave the mouth parts behind, if nothing else.

On dogs my friend likes to strike a match, touch the extinguished tip to the back of the tick, and then pull it out with tweezers. Seems to work

Now that you say it...

Makes me wonder of what would happen when you'd use the tips of two blank wires connected to a 1.5V battery?

ZAP!

Could be made into a small USB-gadget, to have it always available? Zaptastick!

I like this. Better: ZapStick!

I actually searched for things like that after posting.

It's already a thing*, in many different variations. Some use piezo-electrics, advertised as 'battery free'. And countless other stuff, many with some variation of Zap(p) in their names.

*Sort of, didn't see small 'passive' ones powered by USB.

Edit: Thinking about it, one could abuse and modify one of the countless e-vapes for it? Small enough in most cases, and self-powered.

This is your ticket to $$$. All you need is a friend with Steve Wozniak-like capability and Bob's your uncle.

Not interested in $$$/€€€. Already have enough of those. As a personal project probably. But not commercially. That would be too much of a hassle. Which I also have enough of, already ;->

ZapsTick

OMG YES GENIUS!

From experience, you might end up with 2nd degree burns and burn the bugger into a hot crispy pile of ash.

Considering how often dogs in my area were covered with ticks, I am surprised we never got one as teenagers, we were running or biking in the same place.

30+ years ago we would use ether to remove them, and I enjoyed burning them afterwards, it was so satisfying...

In my experience it works the same way by simply using a drop of dishwashing detergent on them. After 30 seconds max they want to get out with wriggling legs. Works on me after jogging, on my cats, at the back of their neck. Any other place they can take care by themselves, and do.

I always carry a tick removal card in my wallet. Perfect removal every time. Even the tiny ones.

The cards I found close to useless. The tools in the link from the parent poster, which are actually for pets, work much, much better.

And tiny ones are easy to remove with finger nails and some spit. But it requires some skill, do not stress out the ticks while they are attached and be careful to not partially remove it.

(Just had to remove 3 ticks on me I failed to spot after a late night walk yesterday, bigger and medium sized ones with tool, the small one with fingernail)

edit: and found a 4th one, but a tiny one(nymphe), they don't carry lyme disease as only ticks who bite a infected animal will have it

It depends on the disease. Lyme takes many hours, as it must migrate across the tick's gut, but there are others that can transmit in minutes.

Yes, but if you push the tick - it will vomit its gut into you.

“Lyme coinfections”, for anyone seeking a list.

I've removed several hundred ticks using soap on a wet cloth and doing one counter-clockwise rotation on the tick. No lyme, tick-borne encephalitis so far. Key thing is to check after every hike, keep checking their favorite places (where the skin gets thinner and softer) and check before you scratch something that itches.

Why the soap? Does it loosen the grip of the tick?

> Key thing is to check after every hike

There's the common advice to wear long pants & tuck them into socks. But at times I've found the exact opposite: short pants are fine.

Why: ticks can be hard to find on clothing. So you get home, inspect legs etc, and (later) a tick crawls from pants onto your leg & you may not notice.

Bare legs otoh make it trivial to check for ticks regularly during a walk, and/or when you feel something crawling up your leg. Since they're not yet attached then, a flick of your finger & they're off.

Soak your pants socks and shoes in permethrin and this isn’t a problem.

Just be careful doing this if you have cats as pets.

I don’t have cats but from what I’ve read, you just need to keep them away from it until it dries.

Ive seen conflicting reports regarding safety of permethrin and cats.

Some say "neurotoxin". Others say "neurotoxin till dried".

Frankly, I'll keep it away in any form. I dont want to harm my cats. Even if it means that I'm a human pincushion to mosquitoes and ticks.

Maybe it depends on the formulation or maybe it’s just be down to what the particular manufacturer has actually tested.

They make flea collars for cats with permethrin (I found out just now) so it can’t be that toxic. If you’re really worried just get a pair of hiking pants and boots and keep them in a catproof tote.