Mites treatment

What treatment do you use to treat mites? Is spray ones better than live Taurus Mites ?
I found today one mite on my BP, after inspecting his body I found no more, no other symptoms are presented, he is not soaking and he also took a meal few days ago. I cleaned the enclosure, took out everything except the two hides and water ball( which I cleaned as well). Now I have him on paper towels and I ordered a Spray mite treatment that you spray straight on the snake and inside the enclosure but I have a lot of people telling that sprays do nothing and is better to use the taurus mites. Anyone that has tried both and have an opinion??
Thanks :D:D

If you only found one mite and no evidence of more, seems like the Taurrus mite route is a bit expensive and overkill as well. I'd go with the mite spray at first.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...Mite-questions

The link above is sound and detailed advice. Very interested in the heat treatment, I will try that for housing. The only different l thing I do it the olive oil treatment for all new snakes.

For all new snakes I wipe them down first with a paper towel and some olive oil. This has two advantages for me.
1 it suffocates mites as they breath trough their skin and has a bit more of an ongoing affect than a soak.
2, It also helps them come off into the paper towel, so i can more easily see if there are any adult stage mites present.

If there are adult stage mites present I would probably use frontline, but there has not been yet.

Mites or not I then treat the tubs similarly to the link above, but the products in the UK have different names sometimes. I use ardap spray. This product is supposed to work for 6 weeks.
I treat the tubs, then put paper in and treat that. (all with a lid on) then air it for 15 mins. As the link above, I don't let it near the snakes for 24 hours and a further airing. after which time I will add a water bowl.

That's my process. if I ever got an infestation later after all quarantine was over and the adap spray had worn off, I would use predator mites.

This is just what I do and not advice. do your own research. Except for the olive oil thing which has almost no risk.

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Originally Posted by Ascended

The link above is sound and detailed advice. Very interested in the heat treatment, I will try that for housing. The only different l thing I do it the olive oil treatment for all new snakes.

For all new snakes I wipe them down first with a paper towel and some olive oil. This has two advantages for me.
1 it suffocates mites as they breath trough their skin and has a bit more of an ongoing affect than a soak.
2, It also helps them come off into the paper towel, so i can more easily see if there are any adult stage mites present.

If there are adult stage mites present I would probably use frontline, but there has not been yet.

Mites or not I then treat the tubs similarly to the link above, but the products in the UK have different names sometimes. I use ardap spray. This product is supposed to work for 6 weeks.
I treat the tubs, then put paper in and treat that. (all with a lid on) then air it for 15 mins. As the link above, I don't let it near the snakes for 24 hours and a further airing. after which time I will add a water bowl.

That's my process. if I ever got an infestation later after all quarantine was over and the adap spray had worn off, I would use predator mites.

This is just what I do and not advice. do your own research. Except for the olive oil thing which has almost no risk.

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Recommend you stop using any sort of oil on snakes! It tends to mess up future sheds​. That's why just a drop or 2 of Dawn or Ivory dish-soap liquid in a shallow, luke-warm water soak is better: it drowns the mites but it also rinsed away, causing no shed problems for the snake.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Recommend you stop using any sort of oil on snakes! It tends to mess up future sheds​. That's why just a drop or 2 of Dawn or Ivory dish-soap liquid in a shallow, luke-warm water soak is better: it drowns the mites but it also rinsed away, causing no shed problems for the snake.

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Realy. Even Olive oil? I have never had any problems in the past with other snakes, or my new venture into ball pythons, They all shead in one piece fine every time. I have a suspicion it may bring on a shed, but I have no evidence for that and even if so, cant see the harm.
Maybe its how much you use. I only use a thin coat on the paper towel and wipe the snake, I don't saturate the snake. Many big breeders recommend it too and have no problems over years.

But I don't want problems. Please explain how it messes up sheds? I want to learn and understand.

Still edit the bit where I recommended it. I cant edit after some time.

One example of a very respected breeder using olive oil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaKeK_pafM&t=558s

I tend to agree with you that it's probably a matter of "how much oil is used", but over the years I'm aware of so many having problems after using it that it's just not recommended.

So many people think "if a little is good, using more must be better". ;) And that goes for all kinds of things. A hair care product that I've used for years says to use only one DROP of it, yet you can find ppl ranting & very unhappy because they paid no attention, used too much & had bad results. So there you are, lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I tend to agree with you that it's probably a matter of "how much oil is used", but over the years I'm aware of so many having problems after using it that it's just not recommended.

So many people think "if a little is good, using more must be better". ;) And that goes for all kinds of things. A hair care product that I've used for years says to use only one DROP of it, yet you can find ppl ranting & very unhappy because they paid no attention, used too much & had bad results. So there you are, lol.

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Totaly agreed, same goes for chemical mite treatments, as some recent threads show the high risk of overdoing that or getting t wrong. https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...cide-exposure)

(Like I said, please delete the bit where I recommended oil, it may be misinterpreted.)

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Originally Posted by Ascended

One example of a very respected breeder using olive oil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaKeK_pafM&t=558s

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So I just watched this & he seems to be promoting olive oil from one instance where a snake he got had a few mites & after this treatment, the mites were gone, so now he routinely uses this as his go-to mite prevention method. :confusd: My problem with that is his admission: that snake wasn't badly infested in the first place, & apparently he happened to remove the mites the snake had this way, & while I'll agree that olive oil won't really 'hurt' a snake, I'm just not convinced it's (a) all that effective* and (b) not going to cause problems for snakes with future sheds, since that's been reported many times by others. *I can see where sliding a snake thru a damp paper towel (that's wet, either with olive oil or just WATER) will get a few mites off the snake & stuck to the paper. Yes, I get that. HOWEVER- IF that snake he "cured" of mites this way had had mites in it's heat-sensing pits or stuck to the vent scales or around the eyes, they'd NOT have come off this way as shown, and it only takes one mite to survive & lay eggs in the snake's enclosure :( so in my opinion, in the example he gave as "proof of efficacy" I think he just got lucky that the few mites that snake had were places he managed to wipe with the paper towel.

Mites truly must be taken seriously- they can spread deadly diseases to snakes, & can kill them when they reproduce exponentially, & cause dehydration & circulatory collapse in the snake's body that results in shock & organ failure. I'm in favor of safe & non-toxic methods to rid snakes of mites, & there's nothing wrong with doing this method first, the minute you're aware of the problem & before mites spread or reproduce- but please be realistic about how effective this is (or isn't). Near the end of this video, he is shown spritzing an unknown toxic pesticide into his rack of snakes- so obviously he is NOT relying solely on "olive oil" to kill all the mites in his collection, as you're making it sound. Okay?

I don't mind this being part of the discussion, but it's not the whole picture, not even for the guy whose method you're endorsing. Personally when I dealt with mites, I did the soak with a few drops of mild dish soap in the water, to drown as many mites as I could -first- before using another method (brief pesticide exposure, which I truly HATE to use) to make sure all mites were gone. FYI- Using dish soap, you do NOT want a bunch of suds- only a drop or 2 of soap will break the surface tension of the water, so that the mites all drown, they cannot swim or float; no residue will remain on the snake to affect sheds in any way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Recommend you stop using any sort of oil on snakes! It tends to mess up future sheds​. That's why just a drop or 2 of Dawn or Ivory dish-soap liquid in a shallow, luke-warm water soak is better: it drowns the mites but it also rinsed away, causing no shed problems for the snake.

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Petroleum-based oil products, such as Vaseline or many hand creams, cause scale damage. Olive or veggie oils are fine, just messy, and I wouldn't use them unless I had no other option (like the snake that got permethrin poisoning).

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Petroleum-based oil products, such as Vaseline or many hand creams, cause scale damage. Olive or veggie oils are fine, just messy, and I wouldn't use them unless I had no other option (like the snake that got permethrin poisoning).

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Agree ^ ^ ^

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

So I just watched this & he seems to be promoting olive oil from one instance where a snake he got had a few mites & after this treatment, the mites were gone, so now he routinely uses this as his go-to mite prevention method. :confusd:

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I agree with you, olive oil is not an effective mite treatment. .
I wasn't relay suggesting olive oil as an effective mite treatment, just as a test for new snakes to see if there are mites. a little olive oil helps them come off in the paper towel so you can see if there is a problem that needs treating.
Like i said in the first post, if there were mites detected by that process I would then move on to to other more effective treatments.
If not I would just treat the housing before use (and not the snake) as a quarantine precaution for mite eggs.

Also to others yes agreed keep away from petroleum products