0.1 Hypo Central American

[AmandaJ]

Repticon happens? Or as my husband thinks of it... "Oops, she did it again." For some reason though, he wouldn't let me name her Brittney

So, this is Rose First up, her day of purchase pics from before we put her into her habitat, quarantined, away from our other beasties:









And these, from last night. She ate -- hooray! Unlike Leonard, who needed a live feeding to get him started, little miss Rose was on that f/t fuzzy like nobody's business.

Pre-feeding (someone thinks she's an anaconda -- no sign of mites thus far so I'm thinking she just wanted a dip):


and mid-feeding:


I didn't think I would get another boa, but she was simply beautiful to me, the price was right, and I guess it's true, at least in my case, that you can't have just one.

My husband is a saint. Bless that man

[Rob]

Nice pick up, good looking girl


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[DTK]

Nice pickup! I am debating to get one of those for my next purchase. I had balls for years then I get my first boa(short time latter got another). Neat animals, with really cool personalities. Not gonna make me forget about my royals, but boas are much fun to let roam around.

[AmandaJ]

Thanks, y'all . Yeah, boas are just my thing

And I just love her schmutzy little nose. Too cute!

[Sauzo]

Nice little boa. Do you have secure hides for her? Sometimes boas will hide in their water bowl if their hides don't feel as secure as the water bowl. Of course this ruling out mites or going into shed. And yeah, boas eat like no ones business. If you cant get a boa to eat, then you should give up snakes. They are the garbage disposals of everyones reptile collections

[AmandaJ]

Yes -- she has two appropriately sized hides (i.e., teensy-ish), one on the cool side and one on the warm side She's spent time in both of those, in her water bowl, and just hanging around on her substrate.

[AmandaJ]

Well, thank goodness for quarantine. That "no sign of mites" thing? Yeah, today I was cleaning Miss Thang's cage and saw black dots in her water bowl. So I picked her up to look at her more closely and the dratted crawling poppy seed on my hand kind of gave it away.

I'm so glad I already had a can of Provent-a-Mite on hand. I've got her bin re-cleaned and sprayed (waiting to make sure it's good and dry) and Rose is soaking. I'm also going to be keeping a really close eye on the remainder of our beasties, all of which are in different rooms from Rose. I'm kind of torn as to whether or not I should treat all our other enclosures prophylactically or not. I'm leaning toward not, because poison is poison and I'd rather not spread it around if there's no need, but that may be my still admitted newbieness/ ignorance talking. I've only been keeping since 2012, and this is my first run-in with mites.

Thoughts welcome.

[Reinz]

Congrats on Rose! I love that pic of her eating while coiled in her bowl. It is cool how they can strike without even readjusting their body.

Sorry to to hear about the mites.

[AmandaJ]

Thanks -- I didn't mean to get pet mites, only the snake!

Oh well, we just survived head lice with one of the kids. At least I'm not as squicked out as I would be... more matter-of-fact "git-er-done" in fixing the issue. I'm also not panicked because I've already contacted my herp vet (bless that woman, she has a public Facebook page for just such occasions) and I'll be calling the office in the morning to get her in.

She's so little bitty, my biggest worry is the toxicity of available treatments

[AmandaJ]

Update on vet visit, mites:

I took Rose in to see my exotics vet and other than the mites she's in good shape We've been given ivermectin, and I mix 0.5 ml of the fluid into a liter of water, then spray while shaking the bottle -- apparently it doesn't mix well at all -- all over her enclosure and over her once a week.

So when I got home from the vet I disinfected her enclosure, hides, and water bowl again (I'd done it on Sunday when I discovered the mites, but clean is clean), sprayed her and let her sit in her deli cup, and then sprayed down her bin with the ivermectin spray and around where I keep her with the PAM. I also went to #2 Son's room, where we keep our BPs and sand boas, and sprayed the carpet around their enclosures.

My husband and I checked all our other snakes over to make sure they weren't affected and couldn't find anything on them so, per vet's orders, we also sprayed down their bedding with the ivermectin spray just this one time with the exception of Beatrice, who is housed in the same room as Sam, our young Sulcata. Ivermectin has been fatal to chelonians (at lest when injected), so our vet said to be safe and just spray the ground around their enclosures with the PAM at this point as no one else is showing any signs of mites.

For Rose, we're to repeat this weekly for three weeks and then revisit the issue. I figure if I still see mites I'll keep treating, and if I don't see mites I'll take her on in to the vet to make sure I'm not overlooking anything. My eyes aren't as cooperative as they once were. Thank goodness for my vet, who's only in her early 30's

At this juncture, I'm considering all our reptiles on lockdown. No one's coming out of their enclosures except for necessary maintenance until this outbreak is over. Thus far it's contained to Rose's enclosure, and I have no desire to see it spread so there's just going to be an abundance of caution exerted.

This'll cure the Repticon madness, I'll tell you what :/ I did notify the vendor via email -- very nicely, stating we were all at Repticon so obviously there was no certainty of origin and I wanted to let him know so he could look over his collection -- and have heard nothing back. I kind of hoped to get a "Wow, thank you for letting me know! We're very careful about mites and certainly wouldn't sell an animal we thought had any chance... I'll look over our animals. Please let me know if there's something I can do," response, some sort of acknowledgment without self-incrimination or something, but no dice.

Then again, a non-response may be normal and I'm unrealistic. Regardless, we're taking care of it and well knock these little nasties out.