Garden lime powder impairs tick activity outside. Might want to throw some in the backyard.

This stuff is dirt cheap and available in many home improvement stores.
Also known as dolomite lime or dolomite limestone.

Keeps tick activity down 🤯.

Check it out:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38770710/

"Results: Efficacy of liming at reducing the number of collected questing ticks ranged from 87% to 100% for larvae and 0% to 69% for nymphs 24 h postliming and from 91% to 93% for larvae and -47% to 65% for nymphs 72 postliming."

Hey Bailey!

Yes, the way I'm reading it is like this:

24 hours after liming:
Efficacy for larvae between 87% to 100% reduction.
Efficacy for nymphs between 0% to 69% reduction.

72 hours after liming:
Efficacy for larvae between 91% to 93% reduction.
Efficacy for nymphs between -47% to 65% reduction.

The negative number means that the liming was less effective for nymphs over time.

So for nymphs you would reduce more within the first 24 hours.
Whereas with larvae it continues to reduce, additionally, after the 24 hours.

Hey Bailey!

Ah, that's a math or probabilities question that I wasn't ready for, lol.
So my understanding is that the ticks go from:

Egg > Larvea > Nymph > Adult

So eggs become larvea in summer and the larvae have transitioned into nymphs by spring. Adults by fall or winter.

So with this information, and someone who's better at math than me, it should be possible to at least greatly keep the numbers down without having to do it every single day.

I kind of see it like treating for worms... You know like for example when people treat for pinworms, they take 1 pill to kill all the worms of a certain life cycle, and then they take another pill 2 weeks later to kill all the new worms of that same life cycle. Catching all of them eventually.

I think with ticks it might be more difficult though because they move around more.

But ultimately, even if it ends up reducing the change of getting bitten by 50%. That might have included the tick that could have made someone sick.