Misguided information?

[Skyrivers]

So I heard someone say that they used Extra virgin olive oil to treat mites. They claimed that it smoothers them and they cant get off the snake until shed and that the only real side effect is early shed that gets rid of the mite bodies and eggs that are dead?

Has anyone else herd of this?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

It's been around along time, does it drown mites? yes but so does water and a drop of dish soap, it does not however do anything when it comes to eggs and what is not mentioned is that it loosen up scales.

There are a lot of bad advice out there from using oil for mites to vicks for RI and those have been around for at least 2 decades.

[Bogertophis]

I "second" Deborah's post ^ ^ ^! Don't use oil on a snake to drown mites...a drop of Ivory (mild soap) in water soak does just as well, without the shed
disaster that follows oiling a snake's scales. Save your EVO for making dinner.

[bcr229]

Speaking of misguided info, I saw someone advising a new owner to move a non-feeding corn snake to a feeding tub, and feeding in the enclosure caused aggression. Fortunately a bunch of other people gave correct info.

[pretends2bnormal]

I've seen posts elsewhere where they religiously follow the "no cage is too big, only too empty" philosophy. (Nothing wrong with it, per se.. only that their implementation of it as advice allows for no exceptions, even though they are all individuals and some do need the extra security)

I have had to watch anyone suggesting a smaller enclosure or tub for young, newly purchased ball pythons who are refusing to eat get dogpiled and told it is entirely unnecessary and cruel and so on. Except in many cases, I see the original poster post again each week that more clutter didn't work nor has any feeding method possible (live, mice or rats, frozen or pre-killed, even hamsters in one case) despite everything supposedly being perfect. Many of these are cases with a sub-100 gram, pet store animal from one of the stores with bad husbandry/stuck sheds placed directly into a 40 breeder or 4x2 enclosure.

Also came across someone with a non-feeding corn snake (<10 grams) who had been given advice from somewhere to tap/tease-feed an already shy and nervous individual ("whenever I tap him in the face with it, he just darts away!")... no surprise from me that when they tried my suggestion to let the snake settle a few days in peace then to leave a pinky near the hide entrance and walk away worked on the first try.

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