Hubby made a mistake and bought a bunch of wild caught ball pythons. We got them just before going on vacation and pulled a good fifty or sixty ticks off the ten snakes. They were in rubbermade containers, with water, and unfed (except one who ate right away) when we left on vacation. We returned home after two weeks to find that 4 of the ten pythons were dead. Including the only one who had fed. The one that fed was the most "gruesomely" dead of the bunch. It seemed to have died while on the heating pad (the house reeked!) and probably shortly after our departure. It had a lot of dried blood around it's mouth, but no obvious regurged mouse. The others that died had no strong cause of death.



I was hoping that someone here could give me an idea of how to medicate these guys best to get rid of the ticks and any other inner bugaboos they might have. I've been removing the ticks with tweezers but at least one of them appears to have a new batch of ticks (probably small ticks that I missed the first three times looking them over that grew up while we were away). Is there any medicine I can get for these guys via the internet? I just want to relieve these guys of any parasites to give the remaining six a chance at life. five of the remaining six snakes appear very alert and bright. I plan on trying to feed them tomorrow with some mice that I have right now in some used gerbil bedding. But I want to help these guys...



I know that some will say that of course it was wrong to get wild caught Ball Pythons, and I do know that, and so does my husband. I know that we will never get another wild caught animal of any sort, but in the meantime we have these six who need care and TLC to make sure they survive.



I just purchased a breeding group of three gerbils and hope to use some of their offspring to tempt the snakes later on, if gerbil scented mice and rats don't do the trick.



Well anyway, any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance for any help tendered.
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~Sasheena

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