Nature’s Protection™ Flea & Tick Herbal Shampoo

There are an estimated 899 species of ticks in the world, of which over 90 occur in the continental U.S. So, to have the best evaluation of our products without testing dozens of tick species, we chose 2 species that

are to our point of view representative of most of the species. Ticks from the Ixodidae family are the most common and often choose different hosts: some species need 2 hosts for their development (e.g. Rhipicephalus sanguineus, the brown dog tick), some others need 3 (e.g. Ixodes ricinus, the sheep ticks). We are using these two species, Rhipicephalus sanguineus and Ixodes ricinus, because they are representative of different host seeking behavior, but also because they have two different climatic requirements (dry for Rhipicephalus sanguineus and wet for Ixodes ricinus).

These two species are the most successful ticks: Rhipicephalus sanguineus is present all across the United States while Ixodes ricinus colonized most of European countries, Northern Africa, part of Middle East and is also heavily represented as the “Deer Tick” in Eastern United States. These 2 species are expanding their distribution range quite a bit though. By conducting our tests on these two species, we feel we cover all the tick species parasitizing pets but not the bird ticks.