Gerbie

Or yourself. Dear you won't have to worry too long about these spreading, they will soon enough and then the only way to get rid of them is to dig them out. We have so many growing wild here along with other cactus. The ranchers here have special torches called pare burners an burn them to get the stickers off, for cattle to eat when there isn't enough grass due to drought conditions. Prickly pears also have small red apples grow on them and a lot of people make jelly from the apples, if you can get rid of the stickers. Not me, when I was young I was visiting a girlfriend one weekend who lived on a sheep ranch, we went with her dad to check a water tank, and being a kid, didn't pay attention to what was outside the pickup where we stopped. When I got out I tripped over a large prickly pare patch and fell right into big middle. Well it took most of the day for my friend to use a flashlight and tweezers to pick the stickers out of my bottom and the back of my thighs, glad I was wearing jeans and not shorts. Be careful their stickers are so fine and hard to see, and can easily get infected if you don't get them out of your skin. The only cactus I ever want around are those without stickers.