>>2831222Suuure, whatever you say, bro.
I've been going /out/ for almost two decades now, and always kept animals. While I've had ticks on me a few times, they never bit, but literally scampered and jumped off (seen it repeatedly), and of my animals, the only ones getting bit were the chronically ill ones - for example, out of three cats, the only one getting ticks is the one with asthma, while the two healthy ones don't get any, despite hunting in the same area.
>they don't discriminate based on health statusWell, yeah. They don't discriminate on health, per se. What they do discriminate on though, is smell (CO2 concentrations, iirc), skin texture and a few other things. If you look, there's quite a few studies on different parasites, and while they never name the reasons for more or less bites beyond direct measurements (like CO2 concentration, skin conductivity etc), other studies correlate those with health and nutrition. For example, the higher CO2 concentrations that attracts just about any parasite are directly correlated with lung problems and / or excessive sugar consumption.
Not gonna bother searching for the DOIs, since you'll just claim I cherry picked them anyways, but they're easy enough to find.
