Pulling my hair ou! Mites!

I've been battling mites for about a month now! I guess this post is more a vent :mad:

Everytime it seems like we've won, I sure enough see a big black speck and then I see all the babies...ughhhhh!!!!

My poor snakes are being driven insane & it certainly puts a damper on the whole hobby in general...I was looking to get another snake with my tax money, but now I'm second guessing that idea & course all the while we have mites we can't anyway :(

When I went to pick up some feeders somebody else was in the store buying Reptile Relief & POM...so I guess I'm not the only one dealing with this! & I feel awful for people with large collections!

I'm tempted to just put my snakes in bins & throw out their enclosures, decor, everything! & as soon as I am confident the mites are gone buy brand new enclosures...so expensive tho! But idk what else to do!

My BP just shed which I thought would help in the battle [immediately disposed of the skin] but nope back on her beautiful new skin :mad: & my Rosy boa refused to eat today...they are hitting her worse which is worrying as she is so small.

Wish there were a pill or something like they have with dogs that you can feed & BOOM they are all dead & gone!

Wish me luck! :snake: ....

I hope things work out!

what are you doing to treat them? Is their enclosure down to bare essentials?

Sounds horrible :( I have no experience of this but I wish you and your snakes the best!

When I got mites one time, PAM helped the issue completely. Never saw another mite again. Provent-A-Mite.

I'll let others explain more since I'm on my tablet and it's annoying to type.

http://denardo.lab.asu.edu/publicati...snakemites.pdf

This article explains in great detail exactly why mites "keep coming back" well after you think they're gone. If you don't want to read through the initial pages of snake mite life cycle, physiology, and behavior, just read pages 8-12 where the article discusses various treatments and how they are best used.

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Originally Posted by jclaiborne

what are you doing to treat them? Is their enclosure down to bare essentials?

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X2

I've battled with mites before and even though it was a bad case I managed to wipe them out quickly. My snakes are in tubs which might have been the different, but what I did was:

1.) Bleach everything (tub, water dish, hide) and then dry them with a towel
2.) Lay down paper towels in the tub and spray the tub, bottom of the water dish and hide with RID Lice Bedding Spray (Yes I know it's not exactly the same as PAM but it works)
3.) While the tub was drying I coated my snakes with Olive Oil to kill the mites still on them
4.) After 20 minutes wash the Olive Oil off with dish soap and lukewarm water
5.) Check that everything is dry before putting the snake back in the tub

I also sprayed around my rack and the shelves of my rack with the RID while all of the tubs were out. It was very effective in killing the mites, after 2-3 weeks I re-sprayed the tubs with the RID.

Want to know what we did? Dump all your bedding out and replace with papertowels. Next provent a mite sucked for us! Never really worked for us but doesnt mean it doesnt work. We live in North TX if that means anything. We had did a trade for a collection to get us started and well we started off with mites and RI problems from the get go. We were new and didnt lknow a thing about anything. Anyways what we use for mites is promethrin 10. We buy it at TSC. Mix it 3/4 ounce to 1 gallon of water. Take the water bowl out of the snakes enclosure and spray the whole enclosure and the snake. We spray it directly on the snake while avoiding the eyes and never had a problem. Replace the bowl after 24 hours that way the snake dont soak with chemical on them and then drink it. It knocked the mites out within a week. we did 3 treatments that week with success. You also want to spray the outside of the enclosure and the whole room. Mite eggs will float in the air and you might kill them in the enclosure but that hatch somewhere else in your room and boom your infested again. once a month we spray as a preventative. Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the tips everyone...going into battle this weekend! Will keep you posted. Appreciate all your responses :) & the snakes are being kept down to just bedding & a hide...but maybe I need to scrap the bedding & just use paper towels as suggested! Thanks again!

I'd also chuck out the bedding bag that you have and go buy fresh. The bag you have may be contaminated by now, too.

I would definitely get rid of the bedding and use paper towels. I had mites show up in my quarantine after a show and I stripped everything down to just a couple hides,paper towels and a water bowl (when it was safe to put in). Used the provent a mite and haven't seen a mite since.

i agree with everything else, and would add that you dont need to use any product directly on your BPs. PAM, used according to instructions, does a good job. and when mites bother your snakes, a bath (lukewarm water without anything except 1 tiny drop of dishwater fluid to break the surface tension) will cause all mites to drown.


so yes, strip it down to hides, water bowl, and white paper towels.

PAM continues to work for a month, so when you have potentially contaminated decoration and extra hides and stuff, just clean it as best as you can, let it dry, make sure that its dry, spray with PAM, and seal it up in a plastic bag. the same with substrate, if you dont want to throw it away, spray with PAM and bag it airtight. the combination of poison and starvation and time will do the job. so you dont need to throw stuff away.

what makes mites nasty is that the eggs take up to 1 month to hatch, and they are close to indestructible. moisture or low humidity wont impress them, they survive over a wide temperature range, and they are sealed off from chemicals or toxins. so the strategy of PAM is that it stays active for 1 month, kills any breathing (adult, subadult, larva) mites rapidly, and then stays active enough for 1 month to kill anything that hatches out. work with that strategy. paper towels and PAM for 6 weeks, and they will be extinct.

Well we did everything as suggested & the snakes are on just white paper towels. We treated them Sunday.

My BP pooped this morning so I got her out to clean up & saw a live baby mite on her...I'm guessing these are from the eggs that were leftover.

So I will use the Reptile Relief every 3 days on them like it says on the bottle.

REALLY hoping they'll all be gone!!! I feel like crying!

I will keep bathing my BP too (will bathe her tomorrow as she just ate right now) I can't keep bathing my Rosy boa tho as its bad for them...so hopefully the RR is good enough for her.

PROVENT A MITE!!! QUICK!!!

I can't say enough wonderful things about it. Early on in our business we had issues with snake mites and rat mites and am happy to say that thanks to a strict regimen we've been totally mite free for a very long time.

1. soak the snakes with a TINY bit of vegetable or mineral oil in the water. This will help kill the mites.
2. Purchase ProVent a Mite. We have like 15 cans on hand.
3. Take the snakes out in Rubbermaid tubs and house them in a room far far away from their cages.
4. Remove water dishes and substrate and all that. Pitch the substrate and dispose of the trash ASAP.
5. Bleach the bejesus out the water bowls. Then wash them out really well.
6. Disinfect with F-10 and then wash all the enclosures.
7. Spray the Provent a Mite. You don't want to put it inside the enclosure, where the snake can come in contact. While we battled the mites we put a small spot under the substrate and two fast stripes down either side of our tubs. Then a spritz on every level of the racks. Now, we don't need the under substrate spot. WEAR A MASK! It's super toxic and make sure the room is well ventilated.
8. Let dry COMPLETELY, and let the room air out COMPLETELY. If the snakes come into contact with wet provent a mite it can cause serious neurological damage.
9. Re introduce snakes. Fresh water.
10. Continue to soak the snakes every other day or so.
11. If your room is carpeted, boil some lemons in a pot and spray the bejesus out of the carpet with the solution. The citric acid will help eat through any egg mites.
12. Repeat monthly.

Keep in mind that your problem is going to persist for a while until the future eggs are hatched and can be killed. Expect two-three months to win. But trust me, it WORKS! The rat mites took more effort to get rid of, but Pro Vent a mite played a big role in that war too.

It's nuclear warfare for sure.