My experience dealing with mites !

[FronZilla]

Hey guys, new to the forum ! I have been battling mites on my Coastal Carpet Python and my Royal for 4 weeks now... through process of elimination i have boiled it down to some wood that i bought from a local reptile shop ( one of them ones part of a garden centre ) as the culprit! my own fault due to not freezing or boiling before placing in the vivariums.

I would just like to tell everyone how i battled these mites and how, eventually, i discovered how to be rid of them in only a couple of hours.

When i first noticed that both my larger snakes had a couple of mites, i flipped, i was panicking and thought, bollocks, more money, more hassle, etc etc. So i did the following!

Using larger sized rub tubs, running nice warm baths, relatively full, once a week, ensuring the snake would be fully submerged occasionally to ensure any mites on the snakes head trying to not drown would hopefully be washed off. While the snakes would be having there bath for 30-40 minutes i would use odorless, bleach free, anti bacterial spray, watered down, and then wiped out with kitchen roll, then resprayed with water, wiped out, and so on, until there were no traces of anti bacterial left. Also using a washing up handheld dish scrubber worked well with rough bristles to loosen up any dirt in corners from Orchid bark.

I found that the mites would lay eggs in the most awkward of places, so all decoration has been removed, only hide and water bowl remain, but cleaned on a daily basis with either a kettle of boiling water or a reptile wipe and a run under the hot tap to try and remove them. Last week i was sure that through persistence i had killed them off and both of the snakes were now rid of them, but that was not the case, sure enough eggs had been missed and more started to infest my babies!

So, after 4 weeks of battle, i have had enough, today i went to my local reptile shop, Bristol Reptile Emporium, which i must say is a brilliant place with great staff and amazing knowledge to provide you with all information you need... They recommended a product called Callington mite spray, at the cost of £20. After looking online prior to buying the internet showed me good reviews! and so, i purchased it. I got home, moved my smaller snakes away, put the infected ones into their rub tubs, sprayed the inside of their vivs for 5 seconds and left for 1 hour. Returned, fog/mist had settled, returned snakes to homes and left for a further hour to await results.

So, did it work.. Yes, yes it did, using a soft light on my phone i inspected both vivariums to find lovely little dead mites on the floor of the vivs, success!! but, don't count your chickens ! i was very very happy with such fast results and wanted to get my beasty carpet out to inspect but decided not to due to not knowing if all mites had suffocated. Think its best to leave for a couple of days to ensure they are still dying or have all died.

Bottom line, if you get mites, in my opinion, just get a bottle of this Callington spray, yes it is £20 but blimey, it saves alot of hassle ! And just one last thing, if you have a very bad case of mites, ( which i did'nt luckily ) hoover like mad ! mites can travel a fair ways ! and if you have this Callington spray, put some in the cylinder of your vacuum to kill them when you suck them off the floor, behind or round the sides of your enclosures

Originally posted in wrong section.. oops ! I hope this helps people on here, thanks for reading ! Charlie.

[Vypyrz]

Hello Charlie, and to BP.net. I checked the technical data sheet for this mite spray and it looks similar to a mite spray that we have here, in the States called Provent-A-Mite. The active ingredients are different, but the application processes are almost the same. I did a quick check to see if Callingtons was also available in Canada, but I didn't have much luck. Maybe one of the Canadian members here could check into this further. Thank you for the recommendation, as it is always nice to know some of the different products available to reptile keepers of different regions...

[FronZilla]

Hi Vypyrz! Thank you for the welcome before buying Callington mite spray I did have a look at a product called either provent-a-mite or mite off, which is available in the UK, in a small blue bottle which had mixed reviews, either stating it was a product that did not work or it worked excellently. Which makes me wonder if people just do not follow instructions and are confident in using it to its maximum potential. You are more than welcome with the information I provided, due to becoming so stressed with dealing with my own mite problem I feel that I should help others to deal with these nasty creatures.