09/13/2026
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People are feeding ivermectin to deer to kill ticks, and the idea has been studied for decades. The deer eats treated corn, the drug reaches its bloodstream, and when a tick attaches and feeds, it gets exposed. A published whitetail study going back to the 1990s used ivermectin-treated corn and reported complete control at the target dose, measured by the failure of treated ticks to successfully produce larvae. South Texas later used ivermectin-treated corn in feeders as part of cattle fever tick eradication efforts, using free-ranging whitetails as the delivery system because deer can carry those ticks.
More recently, researchers in Connecticut tested the same basic concept with moxidectin, a closely related antiparasitic drug, by feeding treated corn to wild deer in 2021 and 2022. When treated corn was available, 24 of 29 deer tested, about 83%, had blood concentrations high enough to target ticks. The important part is that this doesn’t necessarily stop a tick from biting. The tick feeds on treated blood and then dies or fails to feed and reproduce normally. That makes the deer itself part of the tick-control system. There are still big questions before anybody starts dumping medicated corn in a feeder. It isn’t legal everywhere, drug residues and withdrawal times matter when people are eating wild venison, and there are legitimate questions about effects on dung insects, other wildlife, and other unknown unknowns, so be careful.
— Stephen Ziegler
Outdoor writer | Member, Hunter Nation
