New snake and new problems

I got a another pastel ball tonight and got it home to find mites on it. Iv already ordered PAM and i have a couple questions. Can i keep all the wood he came with or do i need to throw them away? Also he came with aspen bedding and i dont have extra reptabark right now. is it okay to use that for the time being or should i run out and get reptabark first thing in the morning?

Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

If your snake has mites you should use paper towels as substrate for the time being. the mites will get into any other substrate and make things worse.Paper towels also make it easier to see mites. The wood can be salvaged but everything in the enclosure needs to be taken out and bleached. Your tank should have as little as possible in it until the mites are 100% gone.

Soak the snake in water with a drop of Dawn in it. Then rinse him well. Do this every other day (or so).

I think you can bake the wood in your oven to kill the mites, but I have no idea about what temperature and how long. Perhaps someone else can chime in on those specifics?

As The Serpent Merchant said, put him on paper towels until the mite issue is resolved. This allows you to determine when the mites are gone, as they are really easy to see against the paper towels.

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Originally Posted by KatStoverReptiles

I think you can bake the wood in your oven to kill the mites, but I have no idea about what temperature and how long. Perhaps someone else can chime in on those specifics?

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Depending on the size of the piece of wood, I'd put it in the oven around 180-200 degrees for an hour or so...you want to make sure it's thoroughly heated through.

okay. ill do all that. Thank you all for the help. This is my second snake so im new to the mites thing. The guy i bought it from didnt take that great of care of him. he was so cold when i bought him and didnt have any belly heat. plus they were re doing dry wall in the room he was in so i had a lot of cleaning to do. he seems to be happy now aside from the mites. Thank you all again.

Generally, when it comes to any sort of wood for me, I boil it on the stove for about 15 minutes then hit it with 350F in the oven for another 15 minutes. The hot water will get most of it, and it hydrates the wood so the oven doesn't dry it out or crack it.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

Generally, when it comes to any sort of wood for me, I boil it on the stove for about 15 minutes then hit it with 350F in the oven for another 15 minutes. The hot water will get most of it, and it hydrates the wood so the oven doesn't dry it out or crack it.

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X2 this is how I treat all my wood before it goes into an enclosure or to clean one a year :)