Heartwater, a disease caused by the bacterium Ehrlichia ruminantium that is passed on to animals by ticks, is an important disease affecting cattle, goats and sheep in parts of Botswana. In recent years, outbreaks have been reported outside of endemic regions, threatening food security in rural regions where subsistence (smallholder) farming is practiced and undermining the profitability of commercial beef exports. To identify the reasons for outbreaks of heartwater in Botswana and to inform veterinary policy (for example deciding which animals should be vaccinated) it is first necessary to understand where the ticks that carry heartwater are found. These data can then be used to build statistical and mechanistic models to predicted the potential spread of the ticks based on climate change predictions, and model the tick-borne pathogen dynamics.