Aspen

I know this thread is a few days old but I was doing a search on aspen and mites. I start acquiring snakes for my collection about 2-3 months ago. I started out with one that I had for a year and a half. So they are all 'new' and 'quarantined' all together in the same room---I don't have enough rooms in my house to quarantine each snake seperately.

I started out getting snakes and keeping them in tanks. I used ReptiCarpet and never had a problem. My collection grew and I switched to tubs with papertowels. After I got a few more snakes a reputable breeder suggested aspen bedding, that it was easy to clean, cheaper than paper towels, and he sold me a bag. Less than a month later, one of my snakes (who was one of the first of my collection) had mites. They were little black poppyseed or pepper looking bugs crawling all over him. I treated him with Mite Off, and in 24 hours he was clear of them. I have kept him on papertowels and he has been fine for about a week....and tonight I noticed 2 of my spider females now have mites as well.

So that was it, I spent the last 2 hours getting rid of ALL the aspen bedding, bathing ALL the snakes, bleaching ALL the tubs, water bowls, and hides, and getting everyone settled back in. The snakes with mites (the 2 spiders) were treated with Mite Off and I am hoping that takes care of it.

I am convinced it is the bedding. And no, these were not wood mites, they were burried inbetween the scales of the snakes, dark brown or black, gross. Totally freaked me out. I hate fleas on my dogs and cats, I sure as heck don't want mites on my snakes. I am hoping I now don't have a mite problem...but I have been researching tonight and have found MANY MANY people who swear their snakes, who have never had a problem with mites before, got mites after starting to use aspen bedding. So...I dunno....I'm pretty convinced. I am looking into unprinted newspaper tomorrow as Bounty Select-a-Size are going to get expensive wth 3 racks.

Sorry to hear you had this problem, I'm right there with you. :(