Rainbow Boas and Mite Spray Dangers

[purplemuffin]

Okay, this has to do with my experiences and I just haven't seen any information on this online so I figured I should post this.

It's basically about the cause of death of our rainbow boa. It's..hard for me to type, because it basically was my fault.. I wish I had listened to my boyfriend, but at the same time, I wish there was more information out about this particular problem.

The whole story:
When the NARBC came to texas we purchased a baby brazilian rainbow boa from Bryan Hummel. She was great and perfect and healthy and we were thrilled to have our dream snake finally in our collection! When we got home, however, we discovered we picked up mites somewhere during the convention. We emailed Hummel to tell him we came home with mites to tell him to watch out in case whoever gave them to us touched him/his animals as well. He didn't have any, so that was good.

So, we asked our herp friends what to do, they said to get mite spray and start treating the snake soon. Anyway, we planned on purchasing prevent a mite, but until then used the natural chemistry mite spray as it was the only thing in our area. This is where my stupidity comes in. Nathan told me he was nervous about using any chemicals as the animal was young(4 months I think?), but I was stupid and told him to do it anyway. We were careful, we didn't spray directly on the animal, we just basically used it to clean the cage. Even after that we would rinse the cage out to prevent the chemicals from messing with the snake. We also used the spray as little as possible, as the bottle says not to use it for more than three day intervals. I think we did it on 1 or 2 day intervals, just rinsing with water on the days between.

Things appeared to be fine, the snake acted normal, she ate for us.. even pooped for us on the day we got her home. But then, less than a week after the purchase, she was dead.

I told the breeder what happened and that his snake was sadly dead. We got an email from Bryan Hummel who said that rainbow boas are completely sensitive to mite spray more than any reptile and that we should not have done any treatment on the mites other than purchasing mite predators to eat them. He never uses mite spray for his boas, just the predatory mites.


After this I felt horribly guilty, I had caused the early death of our snake we had dreamed of for years and years, our sweet little baby Dorothy. I wish I had asked him directly, but mites seemed like such a common problem, and in fact I had even known someone who used the very same mite spray I used on her rainbow boa and had no bad effects.. but of course her rainbow boa was an adult.


I just wanted to ask if this is just something everybody knew about but just..never put online anywhere? I've been looking on all different websites, caresheets, mite pages, breeder sites..I've never seen anyone mention it. However, now I have spoken to another breeder besides Bryan who claims to have heard of this problem. But then on his website care page it makes no mention of it in the mite section.

I don't know, I guess I want to know if more people have heard of this. I feel absolutely ashamed of myself even now, and I want to prevent this feeling from happening to anyone else. I know I can't make up for what happened.. But maybe I can stop it from happening to someone else... So I want to get this information out there about what happened to me. Even if it's hard to admit..

So..be careful guys...

[Skittles1101]

Wow I did NOT know that either. I'm so sorry for your loss, and I don't think you should kick yourself as hard as you are. I know you feel like it's all your fault, but to be optimistic, you were trying to HELP a problem with your snake. Do you know if this goes for all boa species or just the rainbow boas?

[purplemuffin]

According to Bryan it's just Rainbow boas? But he only works with rainbows and carpet pythons for the most part. But the other guy I spoke to(whose name i can't remember) said that indigo snakes have the problem as well. So I don't know.

[Skittles1101]

Interesting, I have a Colombian Boa and god forbid I ever got mites I would have gone straight for PAM like I would for my BPs....I hope someone with more knowledge on this chimes in, if we can get some details on certain species that should never be sprayed (enclosures, obviously not them themselves) then it should be stickied.

[purplemuffin]

I would like more information as well. It's surprising that something like this that clearly some people know about wouldn't be more prominently warned about on websites like this...

It's just hard not to beat myself up, I could have called Bryan immediately, and I should have. I should have trusted Nathan's instinct, but I didn't. So my stubbornness cost me our beautiful snake from a great breeder. Sigh. It's rough when you think you are being careful and then you realize you are doing exactly the wrong thing!

Anyway, from now on I wouldn't mind using those predatory mites anyway. It is expensive, and impossible to save for later, but considering I have very few animals I can afford buying a new batch of the mites if there was ever an outbreak again. Basically they are bugs that only eat the other mites, and don't affect the snake. You throw them in with the infected cage, they kill all the mites, and when there are no more bad mites, they start killing themselves/dying of hunger. When there are no more bugs, there are no more mites. I know a few people who can't buy mite spray because of where they live and use these. It's not as practical, but it works in situations like this.

[Skittles1101]

You really can't kick yourself, seriously. Anyone who doesn't KNOW about this hazard would have done the same thing. I mean, would you have called your bp breeder to ask if you should use MITE spray for MITES? No, not many of us would. It is tragic you lost your beautiful baby, but maybe this incident can now prevent a lot of similar experiences for new owners by making them aware.

[blushingball419]

I'm so sorry for your loss I can definitely understand why you would feel horrible, but at least you were trying to help the snake, and since there isn't any info readily available anywhere, it's easy to make a mistake. I probably would've done the same thing. If it really is a serious issue, that is surprising that you don't hear more about it. You'd think they could at least put "do not use on young reptiles" or something on the can??

Anyway, that's good to know!! Hopefully I'll never have to use mite spray, but it's something to keep in mind. Thank you for sharing your experience, as unfortunate as it is. I hope you can get another rainbow boa at some point too... they are amazing snakes.

[Evenstar]

So sorry for your loss!

I agree that it wasn't your fault. You did everything you knew to do. And, no offense to Hummel, but when you called to tell him to look out for mites, he might have mentioned at that time to be careful with the sprays. And I would have thought that if this were true of rainbows, anyone specializing in them ought to have this info at the very least mentioned on their care sheets. I'm not intending to pass the blame - I just mean that without this info, there was no way you could have known to do any differently.

I don't believe this is true of all boas. I recently picked up my first boa (columbian red tail) and I asked about mites while at the expo (considering where we were, lol). The breeder said to use PAM when we got home on both the boa's new cage and my BP's cage to prevent them. I did so, very lightly on the boa's cage and only slightly heavier on the BP's (yes, we're following strict quarantine), to no ill effect for the baby boa. Also, her breeder said he used PAM on all his boa cages at home and used it on the holding cages at expos too (and there were many baby boas there with him). Anyhow, I could be wrong and I'd also like more info on this. I looove my boa and I'm sure she won't be our last, so this is pretty important info to have, either way.

I hope you are able to get another rainbow soon. I know what it's like to have wanted something like that for so long and then have it snatched away from you. It's heartbreaking and I'm so sorry. We're all here for you....

[purplemuffin]

this is why I like being a part of a community like this. Thanks everyone!

Someday we are hoping to get another rainbow boa girl. Right now we are just waiting on saving up the money from what we spent on the last one and waiting on me to get settled in from switching colleges. Lots of life changes right now.

I really believe Hummel is one of the good guys, I just think it slipped his mind. I'd love another boa from him, he has some of the prettiest out there! Especially the outcrossed hets he has!

I don't think colombian/red tails are affected either. During the mite infestation our BCI got mites too(if you read one of my earlier posts, Nathans family held the snakes while he was at work, totally breaking our quarantine we worked hard to keep and spreading mites to Nagini! This is why we now have locks.) and Nagini did not have any problems with the treatment.

[DellaF]

Sorry for your loss. Like the others said don't beat yourself up. You were only trying to help. We are going to look at some Boas tomorrow at a local breeders. I will certainly ask him about the mite spray.