Show us your chigger bites. Just kidding but....

[Innocentx]

Fossil hunting has become a bit of a challenge in my area, even though I'm using the spray. The chiggers were late coming this year (long cold winter?) but now that they've been going for about a month I must say their population seem especially high and more vicious than previous years. I have bites from head to toe. Is anyone else experiencing this?

(No need to actually show your bites as they often occur in the nether regions of the body.)

[Walt]

no problems in NW Louisiana....Just had the dog in for a wash and wax and the report was good as far as infestations.  (And he is a short dog that I walk in tall grass)

So, if they were a problem here we would have seen it by now.  

It has been 90's and high humidity since April....but we did have an unusually cold winter.

[Al Dente]

I've lived in a few states that have chiggers but Kansas was the worst. I worked on campus weeding and hoeing flower beds during the summer and usually wouldn't have a single one and then in one day have over a hundred around my ankles and other places. The only relief for me was to scratch them and then pour rubbing alcohol on the bites. I still work outside but here in North Carolina will only get a dozen at a time and not the hundreds I would get in Kansas.

[Miocene_Mason]

I’ve never personally gotten bit by a chigger, but I’ve seen loads. Strangely none yet this year. 

[Innocentx]

Sounds like I'm severely unlucky in location.

22 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

I worked on campus weeding and hoeing flower beds during the summer

Which campus? I worked at K-State doing same, on the flower crew during the 2000s.

Rubbing alcohol on bites sounds delightful.

[Fruitbat]

I just got back into town from spending a couple of weeks down in San Marcos, TX with my daughter.  We spent quite a bit of time walking around in fairly high grass but I'm pleased to say that I didn't pick up any chiggers at all.  I did have to brush away a few ticks but thankfully I was able to rid myself of the nasty little bloodsuckers before they managed to bite me.  I wish that I could say the same for the mosquitoes and deer flies but they managed to extract their share of my "precious bodily fluids".

 

The worst case of chiggers I ever had was decades ago when I managed to attract uncountable numbers of the evil things while picking blackberries in Ohio.  That was suffering that I didn't experience again until I did combat with leeches in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia in the early 70s.

 

-Joe

[Heteromorph]

The chiggers are awful here in North Texas and have been for about a month and a half. If I walk in any kind of grass without bug spray I get eaten alive everywhere, though strangely my father and mother seem to be immune to them. I also get eaten alive by mosquitos, but again my parents can be right next to me and be bite-less. 

 

If you don’t like bug spray with DEET, I have found that this works very well against chiggers, mosquitos, and ticks. It is just as good if not better than DEET spray. It is kinda expensive, but worth it to me. 

[hokiehunter]

Permethrin spray for your clothes.  You won't have another bite.  Lasts 3 or 4 washes.  You probably will die of cancer a few decades from now but in the mean time the ticks and chiggers etc...leave you alone.  I use it on all my hunting clothes in the fall and spring.  They also sell permethrin impregnated clothing which is supposed to offer protection for 100 or so washes.

[Al Dente]

1 hour ago, Innocentx said:

Sounds like I'm severely unlucky in location.

Which campus? I worked at K-State doing same, on the flower crew during the 2000s.

Rubbing alcohol on bites sounds delightful.

K-State. I worked on the grounds crew for a couple summers in the mid 1980s. Then I wised up and worked as a student custodian in air conditioned buildings where it was easy take an occasional nap while on the clock. Made a whopping $3.35 an hour.

[Innocentx]

1 minute ago, Al Dente said:

easy take an occasional nap while on the clock

We used the chapel.

[Innocentx]

28 minutes ago, Heteromorph said:

If you don’t like bug spray with DEET, I have found that this works very well against chiggers, mosquitos, and ticks. It is just as good if not better than DEET spray.

Thanks for the tip!!! I will try this.

[Innocentx]

12 minutes ago, hokiehunter said:

Permethrin spray for your clothes.  You won't have another bite.  Lasts 3 or 4 washes.  You probably will die of cancer a few decades from now but in the mean time the ticks and chiggers etc...leave you alone.  I use it on all my hunting clothes in the fall and spring.  They also sell permethrin impregnated clothing which is supposed to offer protection for 100 or so washes.

Very interesting. The trade off for cancer not so much.

[caldigger]

I figure I've only got a few decades left anyway. Why not.

I'm so glad I live in one of the white states!  Although we do get ticks running ramped here.

[Herb]

they are bad in KY. Wear long pants and tuck the cuffs into your socks them spray your socks and pants with  Permethrin or Deet products. They especially like the short (6" to 10") grasses along roads. I got about 250 bites below my waist one time, thought I was going to die.

[Peat Burns]

Funny you bring this up.  I've never been bitten by a chigger in my life.  Maybe they are not common in Michigan and northern Indiana.  At any rate, I was collecting in Missouri this week, and the next day I thought I had poison ivy all around my ankles.  But it was isolated - larger bumps that didn't spread.  Someone looked at the bumps and told me confidently that they were chiggers.  I'll spare everyone photos

[Innocentx]

I wouldn't mind if they went extinct. Can't see a purpose for them.

[hokiehunter]

16 hours ago, Innocentx said:

Very interesting. The trade off for cancer not so much.

 

I was mostly kidding about the cancer.  Just a guess but it is probably less than the risk of spraying Deet directly on your skin.  At least permethrin is on your clothes.   I'm a big fan permethrin though for clothing I know has a purpose.  i.e. hunting camo etc...  I've never had a tick or chigger bite when wearing clothes treated with permethrin when hunting buddies without it come out covered up.  Definitely check it out if it's really that bad.  Even one chigger bite is too many for me.  Just the mention of those devils makes me itch.

[hokiehunter]

11 hours ago, Innocentx said:

I wouldn't mind if they went extinct. Can't see a purpose for them.

 

Only purpose/use I can think of would be keeping the uncommitted hunters away during the warmer months.  Guard chiggers???  

[caldigger]

My father used to tell war stories of when he was in the Army in Mississippi. They would sprinkle DDT all over the rooms and in their bed sheets because the bugs were so thick. It's a wonder I was born at all.

[Miocene_Mason]

I’d worry much more about the ticks than the chiggers, I’ve had Lyme’s Disease and it ended up in surgery and a few months of PT. Doctors said I could have lost my knee, though thankfully I didn’t. Hate ticks. 

[Innocentx]

3 hours ago, hokiehunter said:

keeping the uncommitted hunters away during the warmer months.  Guard chiggers??? 

They have built-in bayonets and are loyal to no one.

I caught one running across my leg with a piece of scotch tape. Of course we looked at it under magnification. NASTY!

[Innocentx]

@Peat Burns  We had a friend out from NY and he ended up taking a steel bristle hairbrush to his feet. I expect he still has the scars.

[Innocentx]

2 hours ago, WhodamanHD said:

I’ve had Lyme’s Disease and it ended up in surgery and a few months of PT

That is really horrible, and you're right about ticks... much more dangerous that chiggers. They also carry something called Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Another life threatening gift from these 'expletives'.

[Innocentx]

18 hours ago, caldigger said:

I'm so glad I live in one of the white states!

I'm looking at the chigger map now and thinking about a chiggerless existence. Mmmm....

[Walt]

2 hours ago, WhodamanHD said:

I’d worry much more about the ticks than the chiggers, I’ve had Lyme’s Disease and it ended up in surgery and a few months of PT. Doctors said I could have lost my knee, though thankfully I didn’t. Hate ticks. 

my brother-in-law contracted Lyme's disease around they same time they discovered his colon cancer.  One or the other could have been successfully treated, but together they were a death sentence.