Don’t deer carry the disease, too?

Deer do not infect ticks with the germs that cause Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, or relapsing fever, but they are involved with the spread of ticks. Deer can range over very large areas and can deposit engorged ticks, especially engorged adult blacklegged ticks on or near your property. In areas where deer populations are abundant, so are blacklegged ticks. Deer are the main reproductive host for these ticks; adult ticks that take their blood meal from deer can lay up to 3,000 eggs, which hatch into larvae. The larvae infest mice and chipmunks, potentially becoming infected with germs as they take their blood meal from those animals. Deer fencing and localized deer reduction programs may help reduce the risk of Lyme disease, but it isn’t known how effective it might be as a disease prevention strategy.