Are Ticks Already Ticking You Off This Year?

Those creepy crawlies are here again. No one likes them yet they arrive every spring just in time for outdoor play. They are - quite literally - the stuff of nightmares. We are talking about ticks.

Oh, how we hate them!

Long Islanders have an especially long and adversarial relation ship with the tiny arachnids. According to the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) Lyme disease - a bacterial infection caused by the bite of an infected deer tick - was first identified back in 1986 and can cause a number of health problems. There have been over 95,000 cases confirmed in New York State since that time.

If that's not bad enough, last year a tick was identified whose bite can cause a meat allergy in some cases. The animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals angered some Long Islanders when it announced in its official blog last April that they were going to release the meat-allergy inducing ticks. In 2012, Suffolk County formed a tick task force to study the spread of tick and vector-borne related diseases.

An interesting way to trim the tick population comes from nature itself. One Smithtown resident partnered with local schools to raise quails, which feed on ticks.

We asked readers about their experiences with ticks so far this year and ideas on how to control them. Here's what some of them said:

Debbie Weintz Kelley removed a tick from my dog yesterday- ALREADY!!!!!! Trip to the vet, & he now has his Revolution on!

Ginna Dawson Borah Picked off 3 ticks off my dog last month! She got them from the edge of a little patch of woods by the Deer Park Community center. I do not walk her there anymore. Remember you don't have to be 'in' the wooded area to get ticks, we were walking on the street/grassy area in colder weather.

Add to the conversation here on Patch. Have you had a problem with ticks yet this season? What do you do when you find one? Have you had your yard sprayed? What method do you use?