what kind of mites?

[thegamejr]

in three of my snake enclosures i have noticed these little tan grayish bugs on the bottoms of there hides and seen one or two crawling along the water dish. iv'e looked the snakes over and seen nothing on them(checked around the eyes, heat pits, under jaw, corner of jaw, and along body) the snakes aren't soaking, haven't seen them rubbing on stuff when they are out, and are still eating fine. Anyone have an idea as to what they could be? Iv'e been researching and the only thing i came up with was they are wood mites but want to be sure.

[speedycat222]

Do you use cypress mulch ?

[thegamejr]

i use eco-earth. and i also forgot to mention i use wood hides and that the bugs are not round but ovalish

[speedycat222]

Snake mites are also oval but they're too small to identify as oval with the naked eye. There's only one species of mite that feeds on snakes, they're black and extremely tiny. These are probably just wood mites.

[thegamejr]

thank you for that, im going to change out everything to get rid of what in there and see if they come back and if they do i will get som PAM cause even though those ones are harmless i don't want bugs ha

[FrankieCarbone]

Yeh, with wood mites u can even get away with just throwing away all the wood stuff and bedding, quick rinse, and PAM'ing it up. Its with the other kind u need to start boiling stuff.

[speedycat222]

Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure they won't hurt your cold blooded critters whatsoever.

[Montypython696]

What you can do, is put all your wooden stuff in the oven at 300 degrees for about an hour. That will normally kill off anything living on or inside the wood. Also change out the bedding with a clean replacement.

That should take care of your issue (if they are not snake mites).

Hope this helps!

[Daigga]

If they're visible with the naked eye and tanish gray, it sounds more like silverfish than wood mites.

Do they look like this?


If it's silverfish, the good news is that they are very easy to get rid of (clean the enclosure, change out the bedding, done). Also maybe mind that your humidity doesn't stay above 70% for extended periods.

[thegamejr]

i did a wipe down with a damp paper towel on all 6 of my snakes and didn't see any bugs on them. and have noticed no behavior out of the norm and 4 of 6 enclosures have them in it. so pretty sure they are harmless to my babies
@montypython im going to be baking there hides and hopefully pick up some plastic ones here soon.
@daigga they don't have the long antennae and the back half doesn't look like that, but that was my first thought though.