Advice: Don't wear shorts when you pick berries

[mikeathens]

I made this awful mistake. I guess I didn't realize that chiggers might crawl up my shorts and feast on my...uhhhhhhh...what's a g-rated way to say it :red: ?

I have a feeling that I'm going to be hurting for at least a week. Spraying solarcane there isn't fun, either.

 

[Jags]

All I can say is that I am currently cringing.

 

[Hogwildz]

Never had either, but I am wondering, whats worse???
Chiggers or crabs??
Don't want no itchy wiener. :-O

 

[DiscoInferno]

As someone who picks berries every year in shorts, I must say I'm glad the local patch doesn't seem to have any chiggers!

Actually, the only chigger bites I've ever had (assuming that's what they were) I caught in Florida. Like 10 mosquito bites all in the same spot, but lasting a couple weeks. Awful. My condolences...

 

[webbie]

More chiggers down south.......
But a few up here......

"The reason the bite itches so intensely and for such a long time is because the chigger injects saliva into its victim after attaching to the skin. This saliva contains a powerful digestive enzyme that literally dissolves the skin cells it contacts. It is this liquefied tissue, never blood, that the chigger ingests and uses for food.
A chigger usually goes unnoticed for one to three hours after it starts feeding. During this period the chigger quietly injects its digestive saliva. After a few hours your skin reacts by hardening the cells on all sides of the saliva path, eventually forming a hard tube-like structure called a stylostome."

 

[BrotherBart]

Never had either, but I am wondering, whats worse???
Chiggers or crabs??
Don't want no itchy wiener. :-O

Chiggers are worse. Don't ask.

 

[burntime]

What are you saying BrotherBart, you have partaken in an unclean woman! :lol: Or that you secretly frolic picking berries hh:

 

[Hogwildz]

Never had either, but I am wondering, whats worse???
Chiggers or crabs??
Don't want no itchy wiener. :-O

Chiggers are worse. Don't ask.

Well ya know I'm gonna ask, so do tell????????????????

 

[Czech]

When you're out and about in shorts, just wash after with soap and water and towel dry, this will get rid of most nasties including chiggers and ivy. Ask my wife, we were vactioning in the woods last week, we got back to the boat after a walk and she saw me soaping my legs down and said what the heck? She has ivy on both feet, I do not!

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I don't think we get them in New England. When I was in MO a couple times- every slight itch I convinced myself that I had chiggers. Spooked.

To get rid of crabs- a friend said that in Vietnam they told them to shave off half the hair, light the other half on fire, and throw rocks at them as they try to escape.

Lucky I never had bush crickets/crotch lobsters either. Ticks are bad enough.

 

[Highbeam]

Wow. We have rain here in the NW but none of these critters you folks have. No poison snakes, chiggers, land mines, etc. All we have to worry about are bees, mosquitoes, and maybe a ticked off bear in the berry patch.

None of which cause much trouble with one's hootus unless you trip over it while running away from the hive.

 

[begreen]

Yep, in a month or so it'll be huckleberry season. If you are in the mountains you want to make lots of noise so that the bears can hear you way off and hopefully decide to leave the berry patch.

If that be a Himalayan blackberry patch, the thorns are by far the greatest obstacle. Wear your leathers!

 

[Czech]

Zinc for crabs, I went to college. I didn't learn much other than that, just remember the little package of zinc cream that went around. Jack Daniel's does not work on crabs, had a friend try that, he said the Jack was worse than the crabs and the two coupled were twice as bad. Up here we're more worried about ticks (lyme) and skeeters (west nile). If you're way up north, the moose are no fun during mating season or any season for that matter, they can't see well and tend to think everyone in their path is bad. Bears, brown here, don't get between mom and the cubs and you're fine. A few rattlers in the river bottoms, no big bugs other than the skeeters. Goose (different thread), never knew you were a keeper of the bees, I used to also. The midnights were really docile, then a I got italians and they were good producers but lived up to their name quite well if you get what I mean (pun intended). There was that time that dad and I decided it was a good idea to drop a large maple to keep a swarm, in full gear I was stung so much I lost count, thankfully I'd been doing it for years and had no bad effects due to tolerance to venom. We got the swarm and had maple to burn that winter to boot. Always comes back to burning wood here somehow....

 

[Czech]

BTW, Craig summed up chiggers very well, he apparently knows something about searching the web (lol, go figure!). They do NOT tunnel under your skin, don't stick hot needles in to kill them as many folks will say. They do as Craig said, and even after they are dead the stylostome will cause irritation for quite some time. Rotate cortisone and antibiotic suave, then a beer or four. Call in sick if they are where you say they are, have the SO apply the suave.

 

[d.n.f.]

Stupid question but is a chigger a tick?

Never heard 'chigger' before.

 

[Czech]

In the north chigger refers to the larva of a mite usually found in damp or wet areas. Down south they sometimes use the word to refer to a type of flea that lays eggs in your toes. Either one is no fun!

 

[BrotherBart]

None of which cause much trouble with one's hootus unless you trip over it while running away from the hive.

I hate it when that happens.

 

[glacialhills]

They are mites kinda like little ticks. I have yet to actually see one biting me because they are so small, but as witness, I have bites all around the line of my socks. They turn into almost poison ivy like sores where they bite. Much worse than skeeters. I would not want to be you right now and thanks for the advice. a couple pics from the web to ponder.

 

[mikeathens]

I guess as a follow up, I should say chiggers suck.