it's official - I think Carmen has mites =(

We've had Carmen for five weeks. First had her on cypress mulch on top of repti carpet, but the humidity was too high, so scooped out the mulch and replaced it with aspen (from the same bag that Cleo has in her viv).

At about week 2, I found a rather large round black bug crawling on my hand while I was holding Carmen. Squish - blood. But saw NOTHING else, either on Carmen (she is nearly impossible to search for "small black dots" because she is covered in "small black dots" naturally =P) nor nothing we could see in her viv.

We've been vigilant (looking Carmen over carefully, checking her water bowl when we change it everyday) - nothing.

About week 3, I saw another bug, this time smaller, definitely mite-like, but again, saw NOTHING else. None around her eyes, none in the mental groove (that's what that is called, right?), none in the water, moving in the aspen - nothing.

Yesterday, I found another one, this one on her. Squish - blood. Again, nothing else could be seen.

Today, she was basking/hunting and I noticed some white specks on her. From the light and her location over the water bowl, I assumed they were water droplets from a swim I assume she had just had. Well, I just changed her water today and got her out for a few minutes and I found THREE mites on her. Again, nothing in the water bowl, nothing on any of the viv furniture nor any I can see on the aspen, none around her eyes, mouth or vent...

But she's got mites, right?

We've got Provent a mite and Repti Relief ready just in case and are planning on proceeding with cleaning her with the RR and the cage with PAM (with FULL procautions of using PAM)...but the white specks are eggs, yah?

After I put her back in her viv, I threw my clothes in the laundry and took a shower so I won't spread any to Cleo (Carmen is in our bedroom upstairs, Cleo is downstairs in the living room).

Poor Carmen! :( That's so weird that they came out of the blue like that, I hope the sanitizing and mite-vaporizing goes well!

Bummer. :( I HATE parasites. Cleaning the cage with PAM and giving her a rub with RR is probably a good idea. You may have got the mites from the cypress or aspen, but I've heard that reptile mites are pretty specific to reptiles. Who knows, you may have got lucky and picked up a bag of cypress with reptile mites. Why don't you use paper towels for a while so you can spot the little buggers, and then maybe bake your aspen when you start using it again. Hopefully that will help, and good luck!

If your boa has snake mites, you should be able to run your hand down the length of her body and when you look at it (your hand), see a grey/white powder.

Mites like to hide in the crease of skin on the bottom of your snakes lower jaw and around the edge of your snakes eyes. Those are two great places to check when you get a new animal.

5 weeks is about right. If she had mite eggs on her, they take about 3 weeks to hatch, and then another 5- 7 days to get large enough to be visible to the human eye.

White dots doesn't sound like mites though and I've never seen a mite big enough to "squish"???

Either way, it sounds like you have something bug related going on and Provent a Mite is the best way to fix it!

Good luck!

-adam

"in the crease of skin on the bottom of your snakes lower jaw"

That's the mental groove, right? I remember reading that somewhere...anywho, yeah, I check there, all around her head and eyes - nothing.

She's so naturally speckley, her belly especially, it's super hard to see anything. We run her through our hands everytime we get her out, over a white sheet and see nothing in our hands, except the bugs I mentioned. =P

Yesterday was the first day I saw the white specks on her.

My guess is the cypress mulch (sold from the reptile store in town whom we don't particularly like, so I'll give him blame and not LLL, hehe).

Thanks for the comments! We'll certainly let you know how it goes.

One more question: today is feeding day and she's definitely hungry ("mousey!?"). Is it okay to go ahead and feed her at her normal time (evening) after we clean her and disinfect the cage this afternoon or it is better to wait a day/few days?

White dots sound like Aphids which seem to always be in Cypress Mulch. Whether pet store bought or generic from a garden store. I always had Aphids when I used to use Cypress. Either way, you might want to get rid of Cypress for now and keep her on newspaper for now. As Adam said, time to treat her and her enclosure to be safe.

I didnt see that you said you got rid of the Cypress. Still could be some leftover bugs from that though.

I think we'll put her on paper towels for while and then bake both girls substrate from now on. ("Get yer pipin' hot aspen here!")

We also decided we're gonna just throw out the 2 silk viv plants in case we aren't able to clean off any potential buggies/bug eggies that are on them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jglass38

I didnt see that you said you got rid of the Cypress. Still could be some leftover bugs from that though.

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We have it still yes. Prolly throw that out as well...although if it's baked, it would okay, wouldn't it?

Or just be safe and pitch it?

Baking it should be fine. I dont know about baking Aspen, never tried that.

I've never baked the aspen I buy from dear ole Wally World but we do bake the cypress mulch we buy from Home Depot for the big boa (he gets a mix of cypress mulch and aspen). The cypress tends to be packed damp anyways to a good slow bake in the oven dries it out properly and kills any buggie hitchhikers (well so far it has...*knock wood*)

Also quite fun to have the kids doing the usual "what's for dinner" whine and showing them the lovely cypress mommy has slaved over all day just for them. :giggle:

After reading more, I'm not gonna bake the aspen - just the mulch. =)

Okay, de-miting report:

We went ahead and made it a cleaning day for both girls (Cleo was due), so we cleaned and disinfected Cleo's cage first. Diluted bleach soapy water, scrub scrub scrub rinse rinse rinse air air air, etc. Cleo seemed miffed but hey, gotta do it. Got her tucked back into her squeaky clean viv and moved onto mite-y girl. =P

Moved Carmen out of her viv and into a holding tub (on top of fluffy bath towel wrapped around human heatin pad that we check every 15 minutes with a temp gun). While Rick scooped out and vacuumed the viv, I scrub scrub srubbed everything in diluted beach soapy water with water as hot as our tap will go, we pitched the plants we had and the repti-carpet that we original planned to reuse when we bought them (2 per cage, one in use, one washed ready to go).

Rinsed the cage real good and did ZooMed wipe out after on the cage and surrounding lamps (read on some website today to clean the nearby lamps as mite poopy heads go for heat). Once the ZooMed wipe was done and the cage for ready, I trundled Carmen to another closed room downstairs with the Reptile Relief and a new disposable kitchen cloth while Rick Provent-a-Mited the cage (outside windows open, fan going, cats locked downstairs).

We waited until the PAM had been settling for 30-45 minutes and then I worked on Carmen (poor scared thing). The label on the RR bottle says to either spray directly on or spray onto a cloth and then wipe - we went for the second method. Sprayed the cloth until it was good and moist then removed Carmen and forced her to slither through the cloth in my hand. Several mites (and oh yes, little bitty black things - definitely mites from the pictures I've seen) were left on the cloth. Gently coaxed through a few times and then made sure to get under her chin - *not* a happy camper.

Since her holding box had several visible mites in it (alive? dead? dunno...the box is now sitting in hot bleach water in the sink), I walked her upstairs, Rick brought the water bowl up (not in the room when he PAM'ed) and we put her in her viv. Substrate: brand new Repti-Carpet and then a single layer of pure white flannel fabric (we were afraid Carmen would rip through the paper towel over the temp probes and I have tons of fabric).

Just checked on her and I can see several dead (hopefully) mites on the flannel. She's checking out the viv and I would guess is still pretty stressed, but stressed for a bit has got to be better than mites. =P

So, moral of the store: Don't get mites on a very speckley snake because you can never seen the dang things. =P

Keep your fingers crossed for us that we got them all. Oh, and going to wait for a days before feeding her.

Sounds like you guys are doing the best you can to get her sorted out. Sorry you got stuck with mites but seems you are on top of it. I can't imagine if Ruari got mites! With all his speckles we'd likely never seen the dang things either.


:skullbone DEATH TO ALL MITES (AND THEIR EVIL FRIENDS...TICKS!):skullbone