Encouraging a local opossum population, if they live in your area, would help. They eat a lot of ticks. Allegedly they eat 90% of the ticks that they encounter, which can be up to 5000 per opossum in a season.
I'd be curious to know how long the average life span of each tick is. I wonder exactly how many opossums I would need per square foot to ensure that my yard is 99.99% tick free.
It looks like a single tick may produce 500 - 15,000 ticks per "ovipostion" (egg-laying session).
LABORATORY STUDIES ON THE OVIPOSITION, EGG-SIZES AND SHAPES AND EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT OF DERMACENTOR VA RIA BILlS, RHIPICEPHALUS SANGUINEUS AND AMBLYOMMA MACULATUM http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/cbgp/acarologia/export_pdf.p...