Rainbow Boas and Mite Spray Dangers

[Amon Ra Reptiles]

Why don't you ask the breeder why he didn't warn you about the sensitivity when you told him the snake had mites?

+1

[Highline Reptiles South]

As others have stated. One would think a knowledgable breeder would have given you a headsup when first told of mites. I would have done the same thing - I have never heard of a hypersensitivity to PAM in Rainbows. I used to keep boas but never had problems with mites...

[Phiban]

This is new to me. I've had my male for over a year now, got him when he was 3 years old and have used PAM from day 1 with no noticeable negative symptoms. And I've had my female for several months and she's only about 2 years old and again, I've used PAM from day 1.
I'd ask the breeder for more information about the sensitivity. And as others have said, ask why you weren't at least warned about it.

I'm sorry about your loss. Every experience you have no matter how small and short it was is knowledge for the future and for friends {both animal and human}. Don't beat yourself up over the loss. Just remember the little girl: the joy she brought, and the lessons she taught.

[Anatopism]

Everybody keeps referencing PAM not being an issue with BRBs, but the OP said they used Natural Chemistry reptile spray - which imo is even less of a hazard to snakes than PAM... and they didn't even use it on the snake, but in the cage itself.

I don't think you killed your snake. I think it probably had an underlying issue you were unaware of. Sorry for your loss.

[Sammy412]

Natural Chemistry products are all natural, so there should be no chemical issues from that either. I have also used that on all types (including rainbows) of boas and never had a problem. Too bad you didn't take the snake in for a necropsy.......I don't believe the mite treatment had anything to do with the snake's death.

[bowieisbae]

I just just stumbled across this forum today, when I woke up to fine my rainbow boa had passed away, just 2 days after doing a mite treatment to another snake that I agreed to babysit. I wish I had known this before hand as well, I feel horrible that my perfectly healthy snake passed long before her time, and I was just doing what the reptile store told me to do. At least I found this post which helped me in a weird way since I was racking my brain at what could’ve happened to her.

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...

[Bogertophis]

I just just stumbled across this forum today, when I woke up to fine my rainbow boa had passed away, just 2 days after doing a mite treatment to another snake that I agreed to babysit. I wish I had known this before hand as well, I feel horrible that my perfectly healthy snake passed long before her time, and I was just doing what the reptile store told me to do. At least I found this post which helped me in a weird way since I was racking my brain at what could’ve happened to her.

So sorry for your loss. How near to the other snake you were babysitting was your rainbow boa? If you only treated the other snake, not yours, I have to wonder if
something else may have caused the death of your rainbow boa. What product did you use as a mite treatment? I've never used "Natural Chemistry" (& don't know
the ingredients) but you always have to remember that products labeled "natural" do not necessarily mean "safe" even though advertising often implies that it does.
Plenty of "natural" things are quite toxic, you don't have to look very far. If you used "PAM" (Provent A Mite), is it possible that some of it drifted thru the air & that's
how your snake was affected? Since you were only "babysitting" the snake with mites, it should have been in quarantine, well apart from any of your snakes. How
old was your rainbow boa, anyway? Very sorry for whatever went wrong.

[SMTHook]

From what I understand the Natural is a sodium based spray that kills mites by dehydration. Think salt on a slug. It can be dangerous because obviously it will salt the snake as well but at such a smaller concentration. But I seriously doubt you killed it with the Natural without direct contact. If your snake was seriously dehydrated I'd expect it to jump in it's dish. I sprayed my new Viper Boa without seeing a mite and she jumped in her dish afterwards so I knew she was good. Now Viper Boas live in their dish and I'm not experienced with your species but.......... I wouldn't beat myself up if I were you. I don't think the Natural spray would kill a snake without direct contact and without a LOT of direct contact to boot.