To Greg Lovell:
 
    Greg - the best way to remove ticks is to take a pair of tweezers (I
use my fingers, but because of Lyme disease, you should be wearing rubber
gloves) and slowly pull the tick out.  There are may old wive's tales about
leaving the head in - while this occasionally happens if you rip the tick
off, slow gentle backward pressure will usually remove the entire tick.  I
have never actually seen a case of infection from the head of a tick in an
animal's skin - I wonder where all of this gets started...
 
    You can try coating it with mayonnaise, nail polish, or touching the
end of the tick with a hot blown-out match, but I have never had any success
with this technique.
 
    After you removed the ticks, make sure to bathe your ferrets is a
pyrethrin-based shampoo.
 
    BTW, ticks aren't usually itchy - that's why we're always so surprised
when we find them....I'd go with the mite theory, myself.  But next time
your vet diagnoses mites - ask him to show them to you under the scope....
 
Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP
Dept. of Vet Path, AFIP
[log in to unmask]  OR
Chief Pathologist, AccuPath
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[Posted in FML issue 1375]