PETCO advises treating mites with vinegar water?!

The OP PM'd me the day after making this thread. I was hoping they'd come forward and share this info, but since it sounds like they only had one snake and it is now dead, I wouldn't be surprised if they never come back to BP.net. Since according to the PM, the snake died due to the vinegar treatment, I thought it was important to share. I do also want to mention that I have no idea if it is in fact the vinegar that killed the snake, or even if any of it is true at all. In the PM, it states the snake died "about a week ago", but that was only a day after this thread was made, and it sounds like the snake was alive then, so some things don't add up. Anyway, here is the PM.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mirau9

Hi,

The leaking seemed very strange to me. My snake died while I was holding it about a week ago. After 4 days ( 2 vinegar water treatments). I think that the vinegar made the whole thing a lot worse. I am still considerably upset. I feel like I murdered my snake. I didn't have it that long. It was just a baby and so cute. It seemed like it new what I was doing if I was reading or the TV was on. It would look at the pages while I held it like it was paying attention to the book. Also knew how to watch while the TV was on. I loved it so much.

It is my fault. I just freaked when I saw the mite and called the pet store that sells ball py's. I bought my snake from a guy at a flea market who claimed to have personally bred and hatched the snake that I bought from him. Unfortunately, I overheard his son later on that following week telling a lady that they do not breed the snakes themselves but rather buy them from other snake dealers.

It just seems like everything was fine with the snake until I fed it that mouse. After that is when all of the problems started. That is why I am pretty sure that the mouse was ill or carried some thing to the snake.

Thanks very much for your time as it is much appreciated.

Sincerely,


Michelle

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thats sad

I have used nix for mites,

it got the job done RIGHT JUST LIKE PAM.

I would suggest nix, just remember to dilute it in water, preferably 2/3 water and 1/3 nix.

I doubt it was the vinegar, that snake sounded deathly ill to begin with.

Of course vinegar isn't an effective mite killer.

Only use products designed for use on reptiles or in reptile cages. This is important because many other variations of the same chemicals are tested for efficacy against cold-blooded animals (like mites), and are only tested for safety around warm-blooded animals. As a result, many of these products will poison your pet, not just the mites. "Pyrethrin" is not necessarily just "pyrethrin"--there are different variations and concentrations.
A person might get lucky using some mite, flea, or tick poison that's not made for reptiles, and have no problem, but you can't recommend it! It's not worth the risk.
Stick to Provent-A-Mite or Black Knight.