Tick on Ball Python?? What to do?

I was just in checking on my snakes before turning the lights out for the night and noticed what looks like a small tick on one of my girls. Its greay with the darker area by the head of it. What do I do? Fleas and ticks are a big problem in the area of Texas I am in right now do to the fact that we had no winter. My reptile room is right next to my grooming room so I can only guess that a client dog brought it in. I never would of thought about a tick traveling to the reptile area, and going for a snake rather than a warm blooded critter. Or a mouse could have brought it in??? I am in the country and no matter what I do wild mice are a fact of life I could live without. So do I use tweezers and pull it off? What do I do and what can I used to prevent this from happening again?

Pull it off with tweazers if you can would be my recomendation :)

I don't suggest just pulling it off. If the head gets stuck, it can continue to bury itself into the skin and cause infection. So unless you can pull the head out, don't try anything. I suggest just leaving it the tick alone and let it fall off by itself.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

It will fall off by its self? It is right behind her jaw, I admit I am a bit freaked out by it. She just shed last night so I couldn't of been on her long. Is there any risk to her if I leave it alone to fall off? It already looks like it is trying to burrow into her skin.

You can buy something called a tick key. We use it on our dogs, but it's designed to pull the tick out head and all. Don't know if it would be safe on a snake, but it should be.

http://www.tickkey.com/

If you leave it it will eventually pull off when it's full but it could just leap onto you or a dog or something and it might start multiplying. You're better off getting rid of it while it's still there.

It will fall out when its full and can't drink any more blood.
Just note it will get really engorged.

Are you sure its a tick and not a mite?

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

Ok. I went ahead and pulled it off. I have a lot of experience of getting ticks off of dogs, so I tried it. I am pretty confident that I got it head and all off of my girl. It was big enough to see easily and to grab with tweezers, and it looked like a tick. It was about the size of this "o". Maybe just a tad smaller. To my understanding, correct me if I am wrong, but a mite is more the size a period on the page, right?

I will be keeping a close eye on my girl, and I checked everyone else over and no one else appeared to have any. So tomorrow I am going to bleach the groom room and deep clean the snake room. I normally clean my groom room pretty heavy anyways after grooming dogs, but I will go over it with a fine tooth comb with bleach tomorrow.

Did you check to make sure you managed to get the head out? And also, I personally would never leave a tick on any animal until it voluntarily let's go. The longer it is attached, the greater the chance of transmitting pathogens. You did the right thing. Just make sure you keep that area clean and check her regularly for signs of infection. Nasty little buggers. We're having a similar problem here in Florida. Yuck!

I take ticks off of our dog regularly, and myself on rarer occasions as even the best tick-proof clothing can eventually fail. It's not that hard.

Even if you didn't get the head out the snake's body will eventually "push" the head out on its own similar to a splinter. The head is no longer alive and the body will know what to do when it sees a foreign object. It is not going to burrow itself inside. I don't think there are any species of ticks that can survive on a reptile so I am thinking that your snake was just an "accidental host" from a mammal and would not be able to survive (complete its life cycle) on your snake anyways.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WarriorPrincess90

. The longer it is attached, the greater the chance of transmitting pathogens.

---

But sometimes when trying to remove a tick, if you some how crush, squeeze, or push on the body, any sort of bacteria and pathogens have the ability to "vomit" through the mouth and into the blood stream.
(according to my parasitic entomology course)

Did it look like this?
http://i968.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/PICT0886.jpg

I pulled this out of the top of the head of my breeder yellowbelly male back in 09 :rolleye2:

Thanks everyone. I will be keeping a close eye on her for quite a while.
SnakesRkewl - Yes that is what it looked like. Thanks again everyone.

just throwing something out for the future...I had a bad mite problem with a bearded dragon a few yrs ago, and my mom is a hairdresser, so I used "Tea Tree" natural peppermint shampoo to soak my dragon in the bath tub....it made the mites very irritated and caused them to fall off and drown.
dont know if it would work with ticks, but its all natural and ticks and mites are in the same family, so theoretically it would be worth a shot.

A small dab of nail polish remover will work to back a tick out and make it easy to get off. Ticks are common in imports.

I know it's all doen now but but just so you know...

The tried and true southern method of tick removal is to hold a flame from a match or lighter to the ticks butt. They don't like the heat and will back out on their own.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MasonC2K

I know it's all doen now but but just so you know...

The tried and true southern method of tick removal is to hold a flame from a match or lighter to the ticks butt. They don't like the heat and will back out on their own.

---

How do you think the snake would tolerate that? My guess is not very well haha

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mike41793

How do you think the snake would tolerate that? My guess is not very well haha

---

Good question. It works on people and dogs just fine though. As long as the flame doesn't make contact with the skin it should be fine I would think though.

For harder to get to places where an open flame would be problematic, heating up the end of a pin and touching the tick with it has the same affect.

The match thing is an old remedy. You don't put the flame to the tick you light the match, blow out the flame, and place the hot tip to the tick. I've also heard that painting it with fingernail polish, white out, or any paint like chemical will smother it and cause it to pull out. I've never tried any of these things but my mother used to check us for ticks when we lived in Florida and she used the matches a lot.

I know this is all done but here is what my mom used to do with ticks on our cats. She would smoosh the fur down with vaseline (not necessary on reptiles), get the tweezer tips hot over a candle and grab the tick with the heated tweezers. Tick lets go, you have tick in tweezers. No more tick on pet. ^_^

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2