O'Tom Tick remover! Brilliant!

Sorry, but I think your friend was winding you up, there's a lot of old wives tales circulating about tick removal.

i had to remove one yesterday, i just used a tic remover and got the lot body and jaws.

Be very careful! Many years ago my younger sister got a sheep tick on her head. Mum took her to the local doctor's where a nurse dabbed some surgical spirit on it, then told her to wait til the doctor was free. It jumped off into a packed waiting room, and was never seen again!

This is my basic technique too Claire, it helps if you have long fingernails

Ticks are one of the most resilient of creatures, IMO second only to rats.

I have collected some of the dogs after a walk and put them in a jam jar, screwed the lid on and left them for a year and they are still alive

I have also put the jam jar in the oven and turned the temp. up to 100C and on another occassion I have put it in the freezer where the temp. is minus 10C neither has killed them

The only way I know to kill the blighters is to either squash them between two pieces of metal (You'll never kill them with wood it's softer than they are ) or the other way is drop them in a tin and use the blow torch

Those tick removers are invaluable.

The one thing I would say is watch out for the bitten area showing signs of infection. Marius has had a very nasty reaction recently and his hock was filled with pus and has taken quite a while to heal

We always use a tick removing 'pick', bit like a very small two pronged hook really. It does the job well, and I don't have to touch the little critters. And I do enjoy showing the ticks off to my children afterwards as they hate it and run off squealing when they see the tick moving around !!