Mites? Arghh! Is there any sort of consensus?

how do you know if your snake has mites?

are they very visable?

Yes....they're tiny little dots crawling all over your snake. If it has them, it will likely try to soak and you will find them drowned in the waterbowl, too. If you are using a dark-colored substrate, they can be harder to detect.

Have any of you guys with large breeding collections ever had an epidemic? I know quarantine for this sorta thing does wonders, How long does everybody quarintine for, 6 mo?wildlifewarrior

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Originally Posted by wildlifewarrior

Have any of you guys with large breeding collections ever had an epidemic?

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My collection is only 17 right now - but I would hazzard a guess that none of the breeders with large collection have had an epidemic of mites, because they all take the preventative measures of pre-treating enclosures of new additions with Provent-A-Mite.

That's what I do, and other than one time (before I had Provent-A-Mite) with mites, I've never had them again.

And I did not see mites on my girl - I even pre-treated her with Reptile Relief before bringing her home with me and into my house. She still carried in either some stray mites or had some eggs on her. About four to five weeks later - she was soaking in her water bowl and I found four or five little black specks in her water and that was enough to send me flying to the computer to buy some. The best price I found was at http://www.entirelypets.com

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Originally Posted by natanya

how do you know if your snake has mites?

are they very visable?

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My Surinam had mites and they are extremely difficult to see because a lot of her pattern is very small dark spots on a light gray/taupe background...but she was in quarantine away from our other snake when we discovered the mites...PAM to the rescue, mites dead no problemo.

See? Speckly pattern made the mites hard to see. (She does not have mites in this picture - just an example of her speckles)

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...enscarleft.jpg

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Originally Posted by cassandra

My Surinam had mites and they are extremely difficult to see because a lot of her pattern is very small dark spots on a light gray/taupe background...but she was in quarantine away from our other snake when we discovered the mites...PAM to the rescue, mites dead no problemo.

See? Speckly pattern made the mites hard to see. (She does not have mites in this picture - just an example of her speckles)

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...enscarleft.jpg

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It looks like she has some scales missing? Like something was eating them... what is that cass?

Yeah I should have found a different picture...these are from a post from before you joined these boards...long story short, she's scarred from Baytril shots. Anywho, ignore those...they seem to be getting better. =)

Carmen's due to shed in the next day or so and we'll get some new pictures of her up. =)

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Originally Posted by cassandra

Yeah I should have found a different picture...these are from a post from before you joined these boards...long story short, she's scarred from Baytril shots. Anywho, ignore those...they seem to be getting better. =)

Carmen's due to shed in the next day or so and we'll get some new pictures of her up. =)

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Awesome! Although I have no clue what Baytril shots are for... glad to know she is doing better! I thought at first it might have been a serious mite attack or something lol.

Provent a mite:D


Best thing on the market to get rid of mites.

Forget about that orange smelling stuff. It doesn't work.

Thanks so much for your help. I have taken my two Ball Pythons and given them a bath in water with a tad of betadine to drown the mites. Then I applyed some miteoff on them after they got out just to make sure.
While they are out, I have provent-a-mite and sprayed the cage just now. I sealed it and am now letting it air out. The only thing is I sprayed it good amount in there and it seems to leave a residue. Most say to leave the residue as it will keep killing the mites and the eggs. Is that the case? It just seems that there is quite a lot of residue still in it. I just don't want to hurt them and do it all right.

Joey

P.S. Thanks for all the info, someone sent me this link to go by the information by Mark Berger, I hope all agree it's good information. http://www.bobclark.com/bcforums/top...e+Python+Forum