Regurgitation, Horrific shed and MITES...

[CherryPython]

...ALL in the space of a week

I have to say it's not been the best week for poor Munch

First off we had his regurgitation last week. Sorted that out and taking the necessary measures to make sure he recovers nicely.

His shed seemed to be going nicely. Until last night. I got home from dropping Grant back at his house and immediately he calls me, in a complete panic. He went to check on Munch, his water etc... and lo and behold he was covered in "little black things running all over him".

:

Neither of us have dealt with mites. Pretzels never had them and he sounded so panicked, I literally chucked a whole roll of kitchen towel into my bag, and bombed it back there. Poor Munch was tense, rubbing himself on his bark hide thingy I got him out and looked him over. There were some mites - not quite as many as Grant had initially thought - and he was rubbing himself on any coarse surface available.

I had no idea what to do, there's no internet there and it was gone past any reasonable time to ring someone.
*sigh*

He got a bit of a soak, but was stressing beyond belief so was literally in the water for about 5 minutes. We cleared everything out of the vivarium and put him in his tub on towels. He seemed to calm down.

Woke up this morning and he's shed...mostly. Unfortunately it's all in tiny pieces. Could only find one half of his head shed... But when I checked him over, he's definitely got rid of the other half, I'll just have to look more. It looks like he's shed everything apart from the first third of his underbelly. I've let him run through a warm damp towel but (being Munch) he just curled up and went to sleep...

*sigh* So I went to the reptile store as soon as I could and got Callingtons which is apparently, according to the owner, like "napalm". Also this stuff called F10. Got instructions on how to use it all so Operation Mite Obliteration is a-go-go.

This has not been a good snake week for me. We're keeping everything, including ourselves, clean as possible.



And to top it all off - I fell in love with a Male Pastel today, and only £129.
*double sigh*

Any advice on Dos and Donts on mites would be greatly appreciated.

Also, Can anyone tell me about the pros and cons of Olive Oil and snakes?

AND a massive thank you to h00blah for your e-mail last night

[Cameron Lamb Exotics]

Yeah that does sound like a bad week. Id recommend some products to use but Im not sure how availble they are in the UK. If you have any animals dont handle them after you clean the cage. I believe F10 is just a cleaning agent that you can use to clean the cage after "nuking" it. Either or whatever chemicals you choose to use make sure the cage is completely aired out before putting your ball back in. When you dont see anymore mites dont think they are all gone. There could still be eggs elsewhere that will be back within days so dont loose focus on cleaning the cage. good luck!

However if these products are available this is what Id recommend-Pam (provent a mite), and reptile reliefe.

[Rob]

Sorry to hear about all this. I don't know if you can get Pam across the pond, but if you can it's the best stuff you can buy for mites. It will kill every last one of them. Also I would hold off on bringing that new pastel into the house unless your 100% sure you can quarantine him away from any and all mites and eggs.

[DooLittle]

That sucks, sorry to hear it. :o. Yeah, I would recommend prevent a mite, but not sure if you can get it. Also to relieve poor munch in the mean time, you can soak him in warm water with a drop of dawn dish soap. That will help smother some of those buggers out. Keep your chin up, it is a bps life goal to stress is out for various reasons.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

[CherryPython]

Thanks for the comments guys Feeling much better about the situation now we've started the war on mites... More and more of his shed is coming off and he's been a lot more co-operative than my female would let me be!

Being a pest now... He's been opening and closing his mouth a lot. Only a little, then more and more, and flicking his tongue around the side of his mouth. And when he does open his mouth the first few times it looks errr...stuck? Thats the only way to describe it, and then he opens it completely. There isn't anything stuck in there I'm sure... he's opened his mouth so many times I'd have caught it by now. Anybody else get this? He normally does it just after eating :/

[Slim]

Some of mine go through spells where they will repeatedly do the BP yawn. Always makes me nervous about an RI, but, so far, I've never had an RI with my guys. *knocking on wood*

[CherryPython]

You know I thought to myself earlier 'All I need now is for Munch to have an RI, go missing and for something awful to happen and I might just break the record for unluckiest week ever."

Really hope this doesn't happen.
-Knock on wood-

...And if Pretzel gets mites...I might just run into the nearest river with rocks in my shoes.

It's gone midnight, I'm up in 6 and a half hours (just about) and I cant sleep for worrying.
*triple sigh*