When (if ever) does chigger season end? Anyone have any old Piney remedies for killing them when you see them on your legs or how to stop the itch once they've dug in?
Chiggers
- Thread starter coppersisters
- Start date
They end after a good frost. It will be a while. Spray with OFF and buy knee boots.
I doused my legs with alcohol, then scrubbed twice with Dawn (to get them off), then followed with a scrub of tea tree oil. I got about 90% of them off. But forgot they were on the seat of my car! LOL They only itch once in a while, but I
want to go walking through the woods again!
want to go walking through the woods again!
Buckhorn plantain (Plantago lanceolata) is the Milmay cure for chiggers and poison ivy. Take a handful of leaves, roll them between the palms of your hands until macerated into a wet ball. Rub the wet ball into the itchy pustules until a clear liquid oozes. Repeat the rolling process and use the new wet ball to wash away any ooze. If nothing else, it feels so good to scratch. Ask Bachinsky's who learned it through Hensels, folks who ironically lived in the Swiss-German settlement of Buckhorn around Bertuzzi's Produce Market. This cure was purportedly handed down through Doughty's Tavern.
Broadleaf plantain (Plantago major), white-man's footprint in local vernacular or bobka in Ukrainian and White Russian, was used differently. It was reserved for a poultice to be applied to cuts. First the cut was cauterized by spider web. Next whole leaves of bobka were placed against the wound. Then strips of cloth were wound to hold the poultice in place. C-Sisters, are you old enough to remember Horsey Baba who lived on our farm? She taught me Lemko stories and cures from the Carpathians, although bobka was also known to dad's side who came from the Prypat swamps on the Ukraine–Belarus border near Chernobyl, villages like "Barashi" for swamp people.
Both buckhorn and broadleaf plantain were boiled for a potherb to sooth stomach ulcers.
You mentioned in an earlier post that Anna's George was a Swain. Swain's Stopping-off Place was an early (c.1750) tavern on the Cape Road down by Hundred Foot. George later married a Doughty of Tavern lineage, having grown up on Doughty Tavern land himself. Grisky's place was the eighteenth century tavern site.
S-M
Broadleaf plantain (Plantago major), white-man's footprint in local vernacular or bobka in Ukrainian and White Russian, was used differently. It was reserved for a poultice to be applied to cuts. First the cut was cauterized by spider web. Next whole leaves of bobka were placed against the wound. Then strips of cloth were wound to hold the poultice in place. C-Sisters, are you old enough to remember Horsey Baba who lived on our farm? She taught me Lemko stories and cures from the Carpathians, although bobka was also known to dad's side who came from the Prypat swamps on the Ukraine–Belarus border near Chernobyl, villages like "Barashi" for swamp people.
Both buckhorn and broadleaf plantain were boiled for a potherb to sooth stomach ulcers.
You mentioned in an earlier post that Anna's George was a Swain. Swain's Stopping-off Place was an early (c.1750) tavern on the Cape Road down by Hundred Foot. George later married a Doughty of Tavern lineage, having grown up on Doughty Tavern land himself. Grisky's place was the eighteenth century tavern site.
S-M
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This is always the height of chigger season down here, and they're terrible again this year. I agree, they won't go away anytime soon. 
I recently got a bad batch of them and I used Witch Hazel 2x daily, took the itch a way in about 5 days, but made the itching less severe while it was going on.
I scratch each bite until it bleeds. Usually works very well for me......like they don't itch again until the scab drys out. A little morbid? Perhaps, but I'm telling you it works. Was taught this trick by an old piney.
I agree, though, that this year they've been especially ferocious since there's so many of 'em. Needless to say, I've bled a lot lately.
I agree, though, that this year they've been especially ferocious since there's so many of 'em. Needless to say, I've bled a lot lately.
i use ammonia on them. been working for years http://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/do-it-yourself/diy-chigger-bite-relief.aspx
I scratch too coz they itch. But my skin is rather thin so it doesn't take long to bleed. But the witch hazel does help as well.
Knee high boots and Deep Woods Off solves the problem. Just spray when you see them on your clothes and they die. I haven't had problems in years doing it that way.
This might work, but one little caveat in the age of drug-resistant bacteria: Any time you have a lot of open sores like this is an easy entry for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that is pretty much everywhere right now and quite easy to "catch". It's not that it's that's hard to kill per se (there are other drugs that work) but it can be nasty and can get you kind of quarantined if you work in the health care industry, or banned from school for a while if you're a kid.
Probably just lucky, unless you think the chiggers look at the calendar.
The 15th is just two days away, no frost yet, weather is not so different from what we had a month ago. I try to avoid places like tall grass and heavy underbrush until we have a nice solid freeze.
I have never got them past October 15th as well regardless of frost or no.Thats my date as well but as Boyd said they have no calendar and we haven't really had any cold nights till a couple nights ago it hit 35 down here.That may have did it.I got a few chiggers a week ago but only a few and i was in some nasty stuff.I think they have a life cycle that just peters out at a certain time every year regardless of temperature.We hardly ever have frost in october anyway and their always gone long before november.
September always seems to be the worst month for chiggers, but like others above, I haven't had a problem with them after mid-October. They're predicting frost this weekend, so that will be the end of them.
Unfortunately it won't be the end of the ticks. They're active year round. Although it's rare to get a tick on you in temperatures below 45 degrees, I have picked a few off my pants in temperatures as low as the upper 30's. Fortunately if you get a tick on you in temperatures in the 40's & 50's, they move slowly. It's always a good idea to check your pants periodically if you're walking through thick brush.
Unfortunately it won't be the end of the ticks. They're active year round. Although it's rare to get a tick on you in temperatures below 45 degrees, I have picked a few off my pants in temperatures as low as the upper 30's. Fortunately if you get a tick on you in temperatures in the 40's & 50's, they move slowly. It's always a good idea to check your pants periodically if you're walking through thick brush.
Problem with winter ticks is when they go in they don't stop till they get to their butt hole.They have to be dug out whereas a summer tick can be pulled out with only it's mouth parts embedded.I used to say no ticks below 50 degrees but your right,last year I got one at 45 degrees.