yes they do. if they were on a captive it was kept in some pretty bad conditions! we just bought two balls from a local pet store and both had ticks and mites. the ticks we got off, and u can treat the wound with neosporin. we were very upset with the treatment of the petstores snakes and wanted to do something about it, but come to find out the aspca, cant do anything because there are no laws in texas pertaining to this! (sorry kind of got off topic)