A Tick???

I was looking at one of my snakes today since she just shed and as I was looking I saw a tick on the neck just behind the head!! This was the first time Ive had any type of paracite on any of my snakes... I grabed a small cup of alcohol and some tweezers and after pulling very hard the tick came out and I placed it in the alcohol... I then checked the rest of her over and she was clear, after this I looked at my other 9 snakes very close and they dont have any, two snakes are in blue so its hard to tell on them...

Where does a single tick come from? I dont understand how it got on to my snake inside its enclosure...

Also did I do everything right or should there be somthing else to treat the snake?

And can snakes get lime disease?

Normaly ticks are a Wild caught issue only. I don't even know if letting them "play" in the grass could risk getting them.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

Normaly ticks are a Wild caught issue only. I don't even know if letting them "play" in the grass could risk getting them.

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She is a CH.... But she has been in my care for a long time and I havnt seen any others... Why is there this solitary tick?

Here is the story with ticks as I understand it. Many times wild caught animals come in and are proclaimed clean. Ticks can hide out in the cloaca for many years. Then, when a female lays eggs, the tick comes out with the eggs. The tick will then lay eggs on the snakes eggs. The ticks have evolved over time to have the same incubation time as baby snakes, and the baby ticks will hatch with the baby snakes, and get on them this way.

My story goes like this. I bought a ch girl in 2003 (our fist Ball python, so she got plenty of attention, and was looked at alot). She bred in 2004, but reabsorbed the follicles. She bred again every year since then, and laid eggs in '06, '07 and 2008. She has been in my care for 5.5 years now. This year, after she laid eggs, I washed her and found a tick on her. This is the first tick I have ever seen in my collection. She laid eggs three years in a row before I ever saw a tick. So, I can only guess that the tick was hiding in her cloaca, and finally decided to emerge.

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Originally Posted by muddoc

Here is the story with ticks as I understand it. Many times wild caught animals come in and are proclaimed clean. Ticks can hide out in the cloaca for many years. Then, when a female lays eggs, the tick comes out with the eggs. The tick will then lay eggs on the snakes eggs. The ticks have evolved over time to have the same incubation time as baby snakes, and the baby ticks will hatch with the baby snakes, and get on them this way.

My story goes like this. I bought a ch girl in 2003 (our fist Ball python, so she got plenty of attention, and was looked at alot). She bred in 2004, but reabsorbed the follicles. She bred again every year since then, and laid eggs in '06, '07 and 2008. She has been in my care for 5.5 years now. This year, after she laid eggs, I washed her and found a tick on her. This is the first tick I have ever seen in my collection. She laid eggs three years in a row before I ever saw a tick. So, I can only guess that the tick was hiding in her cloaca, and finally decided to emerge.

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Holy Crap!! Learn something new every day..

Great!!!! Info.

If you have other pets, such as dogs or cats, they could be transporting them into your home. After that ticks just aim for warm things... I would imagine the heat source for your snake would qualify.

Thanks Tim for sharing that. I had NO idea that was possible.

I appreciate how you share so much of your experiences with your snakes, both the good and the bad. It is wonderful that you share and we can all learn.

So, and this might be a stupid question, say if you were to get a CH baby could the ticks have laid their eggs on the BPs eggs which would hatch and then attach to the CH baby or babies once they've been imported? I've never even heard of that type of thing but it's fascinating actually the way that they have sort of evolved that method of finding a food source and exploiting it. Thanks! :gj:

Thx for the info, Hopfully this is an isolated incedent, is there anything that can be done about it? Can the vet do somthing to the cloaca to keep them from coming back?

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Originally Posted by anendeloflorien

So, and this might be a stupid question, say if you were to get a CH baby could the ticks have laid their eggs on the BPs eggs which would hatch and then attach to the CH baby or babies once they've been imported? I've never even heard of that type of thing but it's fascinating actually the way that they have sort of evolved that method of finding a food source and exploiting it. Thanks! :gj:

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That's exactly what Tim is saying, and there is also a little blurb about it in VPI's book. They observed these ticks moving off of the female as she was getting ready to lay, and as the eggs came out, the ticks would climb onto the eggs and squished themselves into the nooks and crannies between the eggs.

Then, they lay their eggs, baby hatches, and is infested with more ticks.

Ok jacking my thread back.... How should I treat this? PAM? VET? what should I do here?

Sorry, to paraphrase (probably badly) "the complete ball python" you're supposed to do exactly as you did, pull the tick off and put it in a jar of alcohol then check over the rest of the snake especially under the jaw to ensure there are no more parasites around. I don't believe that PAM is really necessary in this case, ticks stay glued to their host for the most part so in order to treat with PAM you would have to spray the snake directly which would cause way more harm than good.

Sorry if we jacked the thread lol.

As you sated in your original post, this is probably a one time thing. If you have removed the tick, and inspected your snake for others, and found none, then I would say you are in the clear. It is a pretty rare occurance from my experience. We have been keeping Ball Pythons since 2003, and currently have (including hatchlings from this year) over 400 Ball Pythons, including about 10-15 LTC (a few of which are more than likely WC). In that number, we also have about 40 CH females that we bought as babies in 2003, 2004 and 2005. With all of that siad, I have found a grand total of 2 ticks in my collection, and both of those were found on females this year after laying eggs.

I'd also double check (if you didn't already) that you got the whole tick out. Sometimes part of the head can stay attached.

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Originally Posted by python.princess

I'd also double check (if you didn't already) that you got the whole tick out. Sometimes part of the head can stay attached.

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I just looked at for a long time, I even stretched the skin in that area so I could see between the scales, I couldnt see anything... The snake does have a small mark where I pulled the tick from.. If you look close it looks like it has a scale missing.....

This little guy was hiding inside a WC Burgundy female...He decided to come out with the eggs.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...dy1eggs024.jpg

make sure you got the head off with the tick, if its still on the snake it might fester

So, wouldn't a PAM treated enclosure kill any ticks, even if they are hanging out in the cloaca?

I would treat enclosure with PAM and if concerned the snake with reptile relief.

Many wild BP's live their whole life with ticks. I talked to someone who dealt with imports and it is fairly common but not as serious as mites. Mites are not natural to BP's as they dont exisit in Africa so they can overwhelm the snake and cause more serious health problems.

Of course no one wants ticks in their collection but as Tim stated you could have them for years and not know or cause any serious threat. Granted tick isnt carriing some disease. You would have known by now if that was the case.

My vet once told me this is why you never want to house different species together because a parasite that is relitively harmeless to one species could devastate another. I had asked him years ago if I could house a beardie and tortoise together since thier husbandry is similar. He said for example coccidia is quite commomn in beardies but would ravage a tortoise (just as ticks are common on BP's).

you can treat a mite problem with cooking spray? lol that's cool didnt notice that

Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PAM = Provent-A-Mite