Small mammal use of Thermacell tick control tubes

Tick tubes contain permethrin-treated cotton to provide treated nesting material for mice, targeting immature ticks attached to mice and present in their burrows. However, there have been variable results using these for tick control. The aim of this study was to evaluate small mammal use of tick tube cotton and to evaluate if changing cotton size or adding an odor attractant changed small mammal visitation and amount of cotton removed from tubes. Three different cotton sizes were used. In a separate trial from the cotton size experiment, three different odor attractants were used (peanut butter, safflower oil, and vanillin) along with the same two controls used in the cotton size experiment (Thermacell tick tube without odor, and Thermacell tick tube without odor or cotton). Both experiments were conducted for one week each per month from June – October 2020 at four sites in Central Pennsylvania. Cotton loss was determined by weighing cotton present in deployed tubes weekly and mouse and non-target species interactions were evaluated using camera trap data. Chi-squared tests of independence indicated that cotton size and odor attractants were not correlated with cotton use. However, cotton use was dependent on month (p<0.001), with the strongest association for mouse use of cotton in October and the least use of cotton by mice in July. These results suggest that mouse use of cotton was not related to cotton size or odor attractants but was dependent on season. This warrants future research on temporal small mammal use of tick tubes.