Could I please get suggestion on a safe insecticide to use on ferret to
prevent ticks on attaching themselves to my ferrets?  I find it hard to pull
the ticks because they are small and that they are located in places where
it is risky to use tweezers to pull them and I often end up crushing the
tick (and this may transmit a disease to my ferret if the tick is infected).
 
The two brands of insecticide I used on my first ferret are not suitable
because one (Diryl) says to avoid putting powder on the head and that is
where the ticks go at base of whiskers, eyelids, ears, near lips, under chin
etc... the other one (Sectrol) says to avoid the head, you have to apply it
while the pet is wet and you have to dry the ferret without using a towel
(Dynamo barely let me dry her with an hair dryer and some of my ferrets will
certainly bite me real hard if I attempt to dry them)
 
Diryl ingredients:  carbaryl, pyrethrins & peperonyl butoxide.
 
Sectrol by 3M ingredients: pyrethrins, piperonyl butoxide technical, N-Octyl
Bicycloheptene dicarboximide.
 
My six ferrets have not been walked outside for about 10 days. They are
digging soil that I keep in a large plastic storage box but it is not like
walking & digging outside.
 
THANKS in advance for your suggestions.
 
Lorraine Tremblay
[Posted in FML issue 1615]