Gear Review: Liberty Mountain Tick Key

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Gear Review: Liberty Mountain Tick Key

For today’s post, I will do our first gear review.  The piece of equipment under review is the Tick Key by Liberty Mountain, which has become an important tool for both BeeGee and me.  This tool is one our essential pieces and always goes with us in our first aid kit. You can check out the website here.

The Tick Key
The Tick Key

The Background

Unfortunately, according to the CDC, the prevalence of tick borne illnesses is increasing and new diseases are being discovered.  Therefore, it is important to dress appropriately to prevent ticks from grabbing on to you.  However, sometimes a sneaky tick finds its way to your skin anyway, or if you are like BeeGee, such option does not exist for you.

We first learned about the tick key after hiking in North Carolina, where we lived for a year.  After multiple hikes where I brushed over 200 ticks off my pants and pulled over 50 ticks off BeeGee, we decided we needed an easier way to remove ticks.  The solution for us so far has been the Tick Key.  The Liberty Mountain Tick key is a high quality and durable product. It weighs around 5.6 grams, has a key ring hole, and is made from high strength aluminum.

A Little Bigger Than a Quarter
The Tick Key is Small, only a Little Bigger Than a Quarter

People Use

The Tick Key has worked wonders for me and has been my best option to date.  The key is lightweight and takes up almost no space in my gear.  In addition, it has successfully pulled off every tick and nymph (a small baby tick) that has ever been lucky enough to make it to my skin, with ease.  It is also much easier to use than the tweezers I had been using before I bought the key.  One of the best aspects is no more getting as close to the skin as possible and hoping I don't rip the tick apart, which happened on occasion with tweezers.  Now I just slide the key over the tick and pull.  Ticks are moved with no issue.  

Dog Use

The Tick Key also works on dogs too (I guess any other animal for that matter).  Using the Tick Key on BeeGee has been hit or miss because she has such a dense coat.  The Tick Key works fine for large ticks or engorged ticks. However, the Tick Key just cannot grab on to small ticks and nymphs.  The key just slides right over the tick and we have to use tweezers.  Nevertheless, you might have better luck with the Tick Key if your pup has less hair than BeeGee. 

Final Thoughts

I highly recommend the Tick Key for use on people and I recommend it for use on dogs as well.  Therefore, if you need a tick removal tool, the Tick Key is (in my opinion) on of the best multi-species tools out there, regardless of its few flaws.

If you’ve had any experience with the Tick Key or know of a better tool, please let me know.

Jarrett Morgan

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