Mites ! ! !

Just discovered a couple of mites in both of our BP enclosures. Monty was soaking in his water bowl this morning, something he has never done before. I positively identified them as mites this evening by looking at them thru binoculars bacwards...don't laugh, it works!

Any way, it doesn't look like we have alot yet. I haven't noticed any on the snakes, but have killed about 6 or 7 of the little pests. I have ordered Provent a mite, and reptile relief, should have them in a few days. I plan on thoroughly cleaning all of our snake enclosures, including the our corn snakes, (they aren't in the same room.) And then spraying enclosures with provent a mite, and the snakes with reptile relief. I will also spray provent a mite around the enclosures, and vacum the rooms too.

Is there anything else I should do?

Also, how did I get them? I didn't see any on any of the snakes when we got them. Could they have come from a wild snake? I field herp on occasion, and brought a 6' plus black ratsnake home, so my wife could see it, about 3 months ago. Could that be how they got introduced into our collection?

Provent-a-mite on it's own should be good enough.

You can get mites from just walking into a pet store that has them.. wild herps can have them.. anyone who came to your house that has snakes could bring them. It's hard to say really.

Good luck with it all.

What I did to get rid of mites was

1. Strip the enclosure down to a water dish and two hides, which are not porus (poris, pories, ahh forget it today).

2. Take Zodiac Kitten powder and sprinkle it under some newspaper.

3. In 2-3 days...redo it.

4. Gone Mites...bye bye.

5. $4 total

6. No adverse side effects

I bought a RTB at a show and the poor thing was slambasted with mites in a day. I tried everything out there for weeks and spent over $60! My vet told me to do this and viola...Gone!

I'm not a big fan of home remedies for mites or treating snakes with powders from the dog or cat section of the pet store.

The provent -a- mite that you ordered will do the job. Make sure you follow the directions on the bottle.

You probably brought the snakes home with mite eggs on them. They can have a long incubation period and are invisible to the naked eye ... and they get on everything! .... Killing the mites is the easy part, it's the eggs that you've gotta get rid of ... Provent -a- mite kills eggs too!

You may only have a couple now, but get ready ... once their eggs start to hatch, they'll be every where.

-adam