Attention Ron Billingsley Customers!

Originally Posted by redbird

What idiot called the feds?

If it was your vet - change vets. Look for someone a little less reactive. c

I go to the UW-Madison veternary clinic. They are the only vet school here in Wisconsin and they are top-notch in their clinics. They have one of the only exotic animal vets in the area, with the other one being out of reach by bussing/walking.

Why did she send it to a pathology lab? I am going to say that many people don't bring in their animal to a vet thinking it may have parasites. They assume it does and treat for them theirselves and will usually get rid of everything so the vet doesn't see them. I do not have experience with WC's as this was my first. I did not know how to go about de-worming it and I wanted to have peace of mind that my animal's health was in the hands of an expert. Whether or not these mites are common to snakes or not, they were not common to her and knowing the history of the snake she figured better safe than sorry. That is why she sent them to the pathology lab and I honestly see no harm in it. When there is a possibility for a devastating disease I would like to know that we took unnecessary precautions than none at all.

So many people do not spend the money and time to have their herps checked out. You did the right thing. It's better for everyone that this was discovered early before it spread undetected. You are also fortunate to have a facilty that treats herps since a lot of vets don't.

I agree with you and Cathy, Jenna. Vets who are careful should be sought after and there was no wrongdoing here in her care, quite the opposite. I am hoping that after further research they release your house from quarantine, but either way your vet did the right thing.

Originally Posted by redbird

Either way, I stand by my original advice -- find a new vet, set up a quarantine area, use no-pest strips, don't panic over a mite or tick (and don't involve anyone who proves they have a propensity for such panic!).

Mike Bostic

So you would recommend getting a new Vet because she did her job? She located a parasite she could not identify and sent it to a lab for identification. That's not panic, that's called competently doing her job, what she is paid to do. How would you recommend treating a parasite if you don't even know what it is? Maybe it's a genus that is resistant to your pest strips or PAM.

As has been stated a couple of times in this thread already and maybe you missed it, it would seem the LAB notified the authorities, not the vet. Labs have very strick guidlines on reporting and it would appear that something was identified beyond a simple parasite.

Completely ignoring the possiblity that a devasting disease may have entered the US is what allows them to turn into epidemics.

Jenna,

Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention. African ticks have been a significant issue for the reptile industry in general, and especially here in Florida. I appreciate you giving us all a heads up regarding your situation.

I would assume that the USDA is concerned because they found an Amblyomma tick on your ball python. This seems to be the genera of ticks that USDA is most concerned with because it can be a vector for Heartwater disease. When you have more information could you please let us know if this is the tick that was found, and whether or not they found the Heartwater organism (Cowdria ruminantium) with this tick?

Scott Ashton-You mentioned Heartwater found in imported African vipers. Was the Cowdria found in the vipers, or in the ticks found on the vipers? Do you have a reference for this?

One previous poster mentioned the 'anti-pet' lobby. This issue with ticks is an issue related to the cattle industry, not the HSUS/PETA crowd, all though I have no doubt they'll gladly latch on to this issue if it helps their cause. In Florida we have found the cattle industry to be very willing to work with the reptile industry in trying to come up with solutions that will protect both of our interests. The fledgling voluntary National Reptile Improvement Plan, under the direction of PIJAC, was a direct response to the problem of ticks on imported reptiles. I would encourage everyone to look at the NRIP documents, and to support PIJAC, as they are the best ally our industry has in trying to come up with sensible regulations.

Joe Hiduke

For those of you that have made the comments about "Why call the Feds?" or "You should change your Vet." That is the most asinine comment you could make. For one, she did everything right. The vet did everything right. The only person that has done any wrong here was the original seller for misrepresenting his animals and saying that they were "cleaned up" when in fact they were not. I have dealt with many imported adult balls, and pulling ticks is not a difficult thing to do. It is very time consuming but a much needed procedure if you plan to resell them.

So for those of you who are into the whole hush, hush mentality, you are the people in this trade that will fuel those that are in the position to stop the importation and possibly even reptile trade in the US. You are also the people that could potentially cause a massive cattle plague in the US by keeping your mouth shut and allowing your infested imported balls to kill off large numbers of the US cattle population. Go ahead and make the post that oh that would never happen, you all are just worry warts. Tell that to the countries that have problems with Mad Cow Disease. Try going to your local fast food chain and buying off their $10 menu instead of the $1 menu. Or go to your local steak house and buy a 16oz Prime Rib for $100 instead of $24.95. Go to your local grocery store and buy a package of ground beef for $40 instead of $10-15. Oh while your there pick me up a gallon of 2% milk, $20 should cover it don't you think? Keep thinking that it won't happen, then see what position you will be in.

These procedures are in position for a reason.

Everyone has really said everything in support of you bringing this up and to others attention.

You did the RIGHT thing here hon, and hopefully everything will turn out for the best for you. Good luck!
hopefully, there isnt anything more serious you have to worry about.

Hello. I picked up a WC Gravid Female from Ron in January at Indy. Now it has no external parasites and hasn't been treated for internal because she was gravid. She has been treated now that she laid her eggs though. I had no problem with mites or ticks. And unless he got a new shipment of females then yours came in with mine as he imported like 200 of them at one time. Now Ron does import stuff and usually is clean unless he misses a few animals. But he is a good guy in my book. I would like to know if you had this in your collection for over a week if maybe it wasn't her that had the mites. Mites travel fast so I was just wondering these facts.

I have never posted here on fauna since I never had anything much to say.. with that being said here goes.... I am a nurse and epidemics actually can spread faster than some people may think... One infected tick jumps off outside latches on to an animal infects it and anything that is in contact with it possibly affecting alot of native species and farm animals... millions of dolalrs lost/spent trying to cure and track down causes/factors.....I have bougt some reptiles from Ron several times in fact and had no problems but then I mite treat and worm all new reptiles frogs and lizards I bring in.....I hope everything goes well for Jenna because a quarantine no matter how small can be very limiting to anyone's life.Also I do agree with some people about how this may be blown out of proportion and used to benefit the anti-snake fanatics.I hope this is not going to be used by them but as we all know if it will further their cause they will use it to their benefit. I would hate to see imports of balls stopped since they bring alot of new genetic material into the breeding sector. Let's all just hope this all goes well and turns out to be a situation where there is no heartwater infection and this can all go away but if it turns out to be heartwater be thankful everytime you order a rare steak that it was caught before it could impact millions of animals and people lives......

Originally Posted by bigdogg

Hello. I picked up a WC Gravid Female from Ron in January at Indy. Now it has no external parasites and hasn't been treated for internal because she was gravid. She has been treated now that she laid her eggs though. I had no problem with mites or ticks. And unless he got a new shipment of females then yours came in with mine as he imported like 200 of them at one time. Now Ron does import stuff and usually is clean unless he misses a few animals. But he is a good guy in my book. I would like to know if you had this in your collection for over a week if maybe it wasn't her that had the mites. Mites travel fast so I was just wondering these facts.

I would like to say that I have no doubt about Ron being a good guy. I never ever meant this thread as a bash to him in any way. I am unsure if this one was a newer import, but I doubt it because he said he had it for a month and a half or so before selling it to me which would land it to be in January.

I did have her for over a week, and I am not denying the possibility of the mites originating from my collection. However, I would like to say this is a very VERY small chance since all my other animals are Captive Bred and have never shown signs of mites.

The lab is still unable to identify the tick (it is a tick and not a mite I learned), so they are sending it to Iowa for further examination. They have it down to 2 choices, one is an African tick that is not found in the US and they want to keep it that way (hence the quarantine) and the other is a tick that is already here in the US. If it's not a new species the quarantine will be lifted and Ron's place will not be under quarantine. If it's the exotic species then they have to take further actions because they do not know what will effectively kill this tick (which may be why Ron's attempts did not work and thus it slipped by him). I will find out tomorrow afternoon if I am still quarantined or not. Either way they are more concerned about stopping the tick if it's a new species, they are NOT trying to shut down Ron or anything.

They are not concerned about Heartwater, but a disease that starts with a B. If the tick is the exotic species than it is a multiple host tick and will crawl onto mammals. All we can hope is everything goes well.

The quarantine is really simple: I can't let the infected snake leave my property. If it was illegally imported they said there may be a small chance of them repossessing my snake, but they couldn't say one way or another until they find out more information. Other than that there shouldn't be much more to it. She has already had her first round of deparasitizing medicine, so as long as it's effective we should be safe.