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Ticks are fairly common. I mostly see them when camping/hiking, not so much in my in-law's garden. But in a more rural house, perhaps.

I volunteer with a summer camp each year and in about a week with 80 or so kids we usually end up removing around 5 ticks or so... so, it isn't amazingly bad, but they're around and it's a good idea to get in the habit of doing tick checks regularly after being outside.

Lyme is definitely here. One of my co-workers had it last year and it took him over a year to recover because they caught it late (still am not sure that he is fully recovered).

I have recently moved to Opan,Stara Zagora to live in a small village in the country side and I can confirm where there are sheep there are ticks when walking my dogs in the first week I removed lots of ticks I have changed their spot on flea and tick treatment and things have improved and I will be applying the treatment every month to 6 weeks in an effort to control the ticks on one day alone off one dog I removed 15 ticks.
So I would advise regular treatment of pets especially if you are walking in grass that sheep frequent. IN MY VILLAGE THERE ARE AT LEAST 6 SHEPHERDS WITH THEIR OWN FLOCKS OF SHEEP AND THEY GRAZE THEM ON ANY GRASSLAND WHICH IS NOT FENCED OFF INCLUDING THE VERGES AROUND MY HOUSE.
Having said all this with regular treatment my dogs appear to be only picking up the odd tick as apposed to the several every day.
I have had no trouble with ticks myself but I always wear long trousers when walking through grass.

Thanks for the replies.

So thinking this through -

ticks go where animals go as they need to parasite off animals to survive.
And when these disgusting little ticks are not attached to an animal sucking its blood, they are living on the local vegetation where they can hop back on to their next blood meal.
So if one avoids areas where livestock are, ticks should be fewer in numbers?

Yes, they should be fewer, but anywhere there are high grasses, there are likely to be ticks, even if livestock do not regularly pass through. Learn to regularly check yourself for ticks when you get undressed. Learn how to properly remove a tick. Get in the habit of pulling your socks over your pantlegs when walking through high grass. Then you'll be fine.

What about on shorter regularly cut grass such as in a Bulgarian park or garden. Could one sit or lay on the grass without legitimate worry about being fed on by ticks?

Anytime you're outdoors, in the grass there is SOME risk, but it's not anything to stress about. As an example, I have been in Bulgaria fro 8 years- 2 years in a village, lots of hiking and camping, every day outdoors in parks and gardens and I have never had a tick on me.

Just be aware that there is the possibility and check yourself when you go inside from a higher risk area.

Are there any other small creatures besides ticks that bite sting or cause illness in Bulgaria that are not in Britain?
Creatures that are more common than very rare, and like to visit peoples gardens houses and outbuildings.

mountainview wrote:

Are there any other small creatures besides ticks that bite sting or cause illness in Bulgaria that are not in Britain?
Creatures that are more common than very rare, and like to visit peoples gardens houses and outbuildings.

Please, there is no need to write the whole text in BOLD it makes reading the text hard to read.

SimCityAT wrote:

mountainview wrote:

Are there any other small creatures besides ticks that bite sting or cause illness in Bulgaria that are not in Britain?
Creatures that are more common than very rare, and like to visit peoples gardens houses and outbuildings.

Please, there is no need to write the whole text in BOLD it makes reading the text hard to read.

Sorry mate, that was just my way of showing a new sub-topic within a topic.

Do you know of any dangerous creatures that live in Bulgarian houses and gardens besides ticks, that don't exist in Britain?

Thanks.

Nigel Simcox wrote:

I have recently moved to Opan,Stara Zagora to live in a small village in the country side and I can confirm where there are sheep there are ticks when walking my dogs in the first week I removed lots of ticks I have changed their spot on flea and tick treatment and things have improved and I will be applying the treatment every month to 6 weeks in an effort to control the ticks on one day alone off one dog I removed 15 ticks.
So I would advise regular treatment of pets especially if you are walking in grass that sheep frequent. IN MY VILLAGE THERE ARE AT LEAST 6 SHEPHERDS WITH THEIR OWN FLOCKS OF SHEEP  AND THEY GRAZE THEM ON ANY GRASSLAND WHICH IS NOT FENCED OFF INCLUDING THE VERGES AROUND MY HOUSE.
Having said all this with regular treatment my dogs appear to be only picking up the odd tick as apposed to the several every day.
I have had no trouble with ticks myself but I always wear long trousers when walking through grass.

That would annoy some homeowners.

I wonder if ticks can live survive and thrive in someones house, especially if they own a cat or dog, or without a cat or dog, if just brought in on clothing, perhaps ticks can hop off pets or clothing and hop back onto peoples skin at some point...

We live in a village in the Balkan mountains and get a lot of ticks when walking in the forest and long grass, I must have removed about 20 from myself last year and about the same from my partner. We got a vaccine in the UK before we left to protect against tick bourne encephalitis. Unfortunately you cannot vaccinate against lymes disease. Ticks are easy to remove with a tick twister (very cheap from amazon). For dogs Nexguard is really good at stopping ticks.

gibbss85 wrote:

We live in a village in the Balkan mountains and get a lot of ticks when walking in the forest and long grass, I must have removed about 20 from myself last year and about the same from my partner. We got a vaccine in the UK before we left to protect against tick bourne encephalitis. Unfortunately you cannot vaccinate against lymes disease. Ticks are easy to remove with a tick twister (very cheap from amazon). For dogs Nexguard is really good at stopping ticks.

Thanks Gibbs

have all these 20 ticks attached on your legs?
do you wear shorts or trousers?

I think ticks are spreading, and quite fast too. Maybe its to do with freer movement of pets and livestock within the EU and world.
A local farmer (village in england) told someone i know his dog gets ticks from running in the long grass in the hay fields.
And there are a lot more ticks in the scottish highlands in recent years according to someone i know of who lives there.

We wear wellies and long trousers (after realising shorts were a bad idea in the first couple of weeks!) they have mainly been on legs and stomach where they’ve presumably crawled up clothes etc. We do live very much in the countryside though with lots of wild boar deer etc about. Ive noticed they only seemed to be in April May and June too, once it got hotter they disappeared last year our last tick was in early June and we had none from July onwards.

RE my last post i think this is because in winter the grass is short and the same in summer once it gets too hot the grass dies back so it’s mainly the spring months where it’s sunny and rainy and prime grass growing time that the ticks appear

Ticks are a real problem in Missouri, as are chiggers--microscopic burrowing insects. Is there anything like a chigger in BG? To prevent both, we spray our clothes and body, when appropriate with insect repellent with DEET.  Is such spray available in BG?

kojidae wrote:

Yes, they should be fewer, but anywhere there are high grasses, there are likely to be ticks, even if livestock do not regularly pass through. Learn to regularly check yourself for ticks when you get undressed. Learn how to properly remove a tick. Get in the habit of pulling your socks over your pantlegs when walking through high grass. Then you'll be fine.

Here's a useful technique i've developed regarding socks.
Many socks these days are too tight on the ankle especially when new, leaving compression marks on the lower legs.
I've bought a few sets of socks never to use them for this reason.
To stretch such socks, one needs to stretch them over a wide bottle and leave them overnight (or longer) to stretch.
I've used an empty bottle of Old Rosie cider for this. And one sock can be stretched over each end of the bottle at the same time.
Handy bottles these are.