Can anyone explain to me the real risks/benefits of giving a dog "Proban" - the oral organophosphate? I haven't ever used it but after several big vets bills & loosing 2 dearly beloved dogs, I'm considering it. I recently moved to a wicked tick area & the topical treatments are just not doing the job. My working dogs have natural tick resistance & are holding their own (I use topical stuff on them anyway to prevent overburdening) but I have an adored mini foxie who gets sick at the sight of a tick. Things are so bad I'm considering moving away from paralysis tick country altogether - I'm over it.
With an abundance of ticks, maybe a guinea fowl or two might help? I'd be eager to employ a strategy other than feeding my dogs organophosphate. Guinea fowl would reduce your overall tick population and put some meat on the table too! from this site (and others): https://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/ticks/
Dusting sulphur is an effective tick repellent - they simply don't like to attach to an animals with good sulphur blood levels. We give our jack russell sulphur in his food - 2% of diet so it's not much at all and so far all is good. Can be bought from the produce store. Also effective rubbed into the coat as an added precaution. If you're interested in more info google the work of Pat Coleby -- she has written much about sulphur for repelling biting pests. Also good for mozzies (heart worm transmission?) and fleas. Another thing you might want to look into is the use of injectable vitamin c to put in your fridge incase your dog goes down at a time when the vets are closed or if you are a long way from a vet. This is also good for snake bites. https://www.lowchensaustralia.com/health/vitc2.htm is a great source of info, although much else is written in other places. We keep a bottle in the fridge and have used it for a suspected snake bite/tick problem a while ago, combined with homeopathic remedies given repeatedly. Also used the vitamin c /homeopathic on a bull with tick fever and he did come good (unfortunately he then died from stumbling on a steep rocky hill, so we can not know what the outcome would have been). We run an organic farm and would never consider using proban or the like -- not necessary because the other options do work. Heidi
Don't ever count on sulphur saving you. I've used it for years (along with copper sulphate & dolomite & salt) with dogs horses cattle goats & sheep - in their feed & rubbed into their coats. Last year I had all my sheep on it throughout pregnancy & after - but the lambs still came down with paralysis ticks. I rubbed so much of the bloody stuff into the lambs that we had bright yellow lambs running around - but they still came down with ticks. I've watched the ticks crawling through the sulphur. It's not at all good for the lambs eyes by the way. I've got several Pat Coleby books & follow her suggestions, but when you need the vet (& the drug companies) you need them. Having said that - I have one lamb I'm sure pulled through because of Bracken Fern tea & Vitamin C. He was the only one I gave it to because the vet had a fit when I told him what I'd done. He was the only paralysis tick affected lamb that lived - but I have no way of knowing if the tea helped or hindered him. I will say he was the flattest animal I've ever nursed that lived. He was flat out - limp like a rag doll - for 7 days & I nursed him around the clock. He's in the back paddock now making a nuisance of himself Anyone reading this that's not familiar with it - be warned - Bracken Fern Tea is suppose to be deadly toxic, but lots of old timers swear by it. I also used it on a dog once when I couldn't get to a vet until the next morning. The dog lived - but again, I have no way of knowing if had anything to do with the tea. It broke my heart to have to break with organic practice this year, but I couldn't stand back & watch the sheep die. (I've always used Frontline or Advantix on the dogs. With up to a dozen working dogs at times, it was just impossible to keep up with them any other way.) I think the message is clear - humans & domestic animals are just not meant to live in this type of rainforest/scrub country. Trying to do so is just pushing yoghurt uphill - very tiring. If we can't get it together with slashing & early lambing I think we'll have to give up & move. I've resorted to spraying the dogs with permoxin everyday. It's exhausting with six dogs, but it's the best treatment I can find. Advantix & Frontline are just useless up here. As for guinea fowl - I've thought about them. But we live in the middle of hundreds of thousands of acres of national park & state forest. We'd need so many they would become a nuisance in themselves.
