mites question

I have young ball python about 18" long...I've had snakes before so I am familiar with the care and husbandry.

Recently I've made some changes to the enclosure to accommodate for better heating and humidity management. It's a basic 20 gal enclosure with alot of fake plants, hides, etc....your basic setup. I use aspen for the substrate.

I haven't held him for several days because he just fed. I took him out today and noticed a mite on him....I check him out everyday because I'm paranoid about mites and I don't want the problem.

This is where it gets weird. I only found ONE mite. I've double, triple, and quadruple checked....soaked him in a white bowl....removed everything in his enclosure (soaking in a 2% bleach solution). I have him in a tub right now with white paper towels as substrate while I clean his enclosure and there are absolutely no other mites. Nothing on him, nothing on any of the other items that were in the enclosure. If I notice any more I will use the PAM treatment but this is my preliminary method and I just can't find any more.

ONE mite....has anyone experienced this????

Are you sure it is a reptile mite?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Noek

ONE mite....has anyone experienced this????

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Well, in my opinion, if you found one mite just becuase you dont see more doesnt mean there isnt more. who knows where it came from, but it starts with a few, then just multiplies. if your lucky you caught it early enough to make a difference. anyone back me up on this?

I'm not sure if it was a reptile mite, but it was small and black...I've seen them before. I squashed it between my fingers immediately..

The only thing that could be left are eggs if anything....I have gone over him and soaked him and all of his items very very closely....I'm anal about his health so I am pretty sure there are no more..I am going to PAM anyway just to be sure in case the bleach solution doesn't kill the eggs...but I've never heard of just one mite....strange

Well much like you i am also anal and about a week ago i found one lil black creepy on one snake! So i started to freak out! So like you i thuroughly cleaned all items in my rack and used some PAM since then i have not seen a thing. All of this happened right after i had changed substrate, so i talked to my local breeder about it and they said it is quite common to have mites in some of the bedding, so from here on out everytime i change out there substrate it will be treated before it goes in with them. So yeah i also had only ONE!

well that makes me feel better...i couldn't figure out where it would come from and i did just change the substrate...so how would i treat bags of aspen? I could use a difft substrate but I like the aesthetics of aspen.

I will be using paper towels for a few days so I can easily see if there are any more.

I found a great way to inspect the snake is to hold him up to a white computer screen in a dark room....using the bright white screen as a backdrop makes it easy to inspect him closely

thanks for the replies

If you are that concerned, I would put the snake on paper towels for more than a couple of days. That way, you can monitor the mite infestation (or lack thereof) more easily until you can be sure.

What I do is whenever I get a new animal in, I treat it for mites ASAP. No muss, no fuss. :)

You can PAM the Aspen too, if you want, or bake it.

good advice, thanks. I am actually liking the paper towels now, it's not so bad. This may sound like a stupid question but, how do you bake the aspen? I'm over thinking this I bet.

ps
this must be a Ca. only thread :P

LOL

Well, baking at a low heat but hot enough to kill all critters in the wood is a tricky task. Honestly, I have only done it to larger things, such as wooden hides and so forth.

Do some research and check to see if anyone suggests oven temps, as I don't want to give you the wrong information.

well ignition point for most woods is like 500-900 degrees. so i mean if you bake the stuff at like the lowest setting on your oven wich is like what 250? or lower. i think you should be ok, but if your house burns down, i didnt say anything:explosion

lmao

what if i popped the stuff in a microwave for like 20 seconds...certainly that would kill any living organism living in there...I mean, look at what it did to the Gremlins :D

Not to sure about the micro, but you can bake it on low for about 30 minutes in the oven and they say that works. Personally since i had my lil problem i PAM my substrate that i plan on using and then wait a day, just to make sure all fumes and such are gone then i change the bedding in my rack. I do this personally because i dont like the smell of roasting wood in my house! Since then not one lil creepy bug!

The microwave will not work, bake the aspen on the oven at 250 for 15 min. Keep and eye all the time to be sure that nothing bad happen, if so dial 911 and forget what I just said.....

I use newspaper, no bake needed, free beeding if you buy it to read it every day anyway.

Hope it was only a minor problem.

I'm really digging the paper towels...I may not end up switching except the humidity has dropped 10%, guess the aspen was holding humidity better.

If my girlfriend comes over and sees me baking aspen chips, shes gonna really think I lost it

Yeah the paper towels do loose humidity alot faster! Just a tip that worked for me, you can move your water dish closer to a heat source either over head or belly heat and that helped me alot when they were in cages.

I'll try that. I have a UTH but one of his hides sit over it. I think i can get both close enough on there at least to see if the humidity goes up..if not, I'll probably just revert back to aspen

Yeah everyone has there preffered choice of substrates, what ever works best for you! Good luck

thanks for the tips bud :)