Ticks

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Foofy
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Joined: 09 Oct 2011 18:52
Location: Southampton

Ticks

Post by Foofy »

Ticks
Ticks are small, blood-sucking arthropods related to spiders. There are many different species of tick living in Britain, each preferring to feed on the blood of different animal hosts. If given the opportunity, some of them will feed on human blood too.

There are four stages of the life-cycle: egg, larva, nymph, and adult.

To the naked eye with their eight legs, nymphs and adult ticks resemble small black spiders. My rabbits get quite a lot of ticks in spring and summer, although not in the winter as the ticks hibernate then. The tick will usually attach itself either just above their nose, or elsewhere on their head or on the back of their ears. Presumably as they have their head down in the grass whilst eating. Within the first few days of being attached the tick is visible as a black dot, much easier to spot if your rabbit has a white head. If your rabbit is dark in colour they can easily be felt when stroking buns head as a little hard lump under the fur.

I can quite often spot the tick on my rabbits heads as they are walking about trying to find skin to attach to, they look just like little spiders.
Once a tick has started to feed, its body will become filled with blood. Adult females can swell to many times their original size. As their blood sacs fill they generally become lighter in colour and can reach the size of a small pea, generally grey in colour. Larvae, nymphs and adult males do not swell so much as they feed. If undisturbed, a tick will feed for around 5 to 7 days before letting go and dropping off.
If you spot a tick on your rabbit, or on any other pets the easiest way to remove them is with a tick hook. These can be purchased from any Veterinary surgery for a few £’s and usually come in a little packet of 2, one large and one small. All you need do is scoop the tick into the hook and twist it round a couple of times and the tick comes off into the hook.

There are other ways to get rid of ticks on pets. You can coat the tick in Vaseline, this then suffocates it and it falls of dead but it can take a while to fall off.

Please do not just try and pull the tick off with your fingers or tweezers as usually the tick will just snap off and legs and head may still embedded in animals skin and this can cause infection.

Please ensure you wash your hands thoroughly after removing or touching ticks as they can spread Lymes disease to humans.

If you are in any doubt please seek advice from your veterinary surgery.

Images of Ticks


http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=ticks& ... ,r:23,s:24

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=ticks& ... x=87&ty=68
Imagenew sig by Sue Gibson, on Flickr
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