BP Keeps Soaking in His Water Bowl

[Reptile$ 4 Life]

Thanks Bogert! I think I am going to go with the Natural Chemistry Reptile Spray as it seems less likely to injure or kill my BP and from what I've seen it still has great results. While I wait for the spray to arrive I'll disinfect everything and heat everything like you said to kills mites and eggs. I'll also try the dish soap while I wait.

[Reptile$ 4 Life]

Ok I did everything I could to destroy the little critter. I washed everything that has come into contact with him with hot water and dawn soap. Then I rinsed it all in boiling water. Finally I gave Flicker a bath (He HATED that part) with 2 drops of soap in it. Hopefully, that killed a lot of them. I noticed a mite around his eye. Is there anything I can safely directly treat it with?

Let me know what else I can do to help kill them.

[Bogertophis]

Ok I did everything I could to destroy the little critter. I washed everything that has come into contact with him with hot water and dawn soap. Then I rinsed it all in boiling water. Finally I gave Flicker a bath (He HATED that part) with 2 drops of soap in it. Hopefully, that killed a lot of them. I noticed a mite around his eye. Is there anything I can safely directly treat it with?

Let me know what else I can do to help kill them.

If you can carefully & manually pick it off, that's what I'd do. Many snakes get creeped out by baths, but a lot of that has to do with their loss of traction & the sudden weird feel of water all over their body, which by the way, is why you MUST be sure it's not too hot. Remember we're 98.6* so the water will feel cool to us when it's right for the snake at about 85*. Then if you add traction (maybe an underwater hand-towel) it should help. Keep the water shallow, about half of the snake's height, & keep moving the water over them by hand...they should not have to swim to stay above water. (they can swim but get tired & you never leave them alone) But to make this work, mites must be eliminated not only from the snake but from any place in the cage they can hide or leave their eggs, because they're real into big extended families. Mites are so very icky, & can carry diseases to your snake.

[Reptile$ 4 Life]

Thanks Bogert. I have him on newspaper now so I can change it very often, and all that's left in the enclosure is his water bowl and hide. I read on some other forums that people use dawn soap mixed with water and rub it into the snakes scales and that it is very effective. They said dawn is safer than other brands because it is used to treat and clean a variety of animals.

[Bogertophis]

Thanks Bogert. I have him on newspaper now so I can change it very often, and all that's left in the enclosure is his water bowl and hide. I read on some other forums that people use dawn soap mixed with water and rub it into the snakes scales and that it is very effective. They said dawn is safer than other brands because it is used to treat and clean a variety of animals.

Newspaper is fine (just harder to see mites compared to plain white paper), & Dawn is fine as well. It's very sudsy & used to clean wildlife when they get into oil (petroleum), but I'm not sure mites will drown if they can still hang onto the snake's scales? Personally, I'd still use a bath with water, but they might smother the other way too, I'm not sure.

[Reptile$ 4 Life]

I will try both. I figured I'd try dawn as it is used to smother fleas, which breath similarly to mites. Also, apparently, the mites hate it so they crawl out and fall into the water. I used a blunt probe to gently remove the mites around his eye, and I killed like 12 of the blood sucking freaks. I will continue to monitor him throughout the day and kill any mites I see. Please let me know if you guys have any other suggestions.

[Bogertophis]

You're doing fine...a multi-method approach is often the best, since you want to remove as many as possible safely, while you wait for additional product that's more
lethal to mites. It's very common that mites seek relief in their water bowl & that was my first guess, but I'm sorry that turned out to be correct. Just do a good job on
getting rid of them though, so hopefully you won't have to re-treat (as some have had to).

[vivi]

You're on the right track!

[Reptile$ 4 Life]

Should I soak him daily or give him a day in between soaking?

[Bogertophis]

Should I soak him daily or give him a day in between soaking?

I'd soak him daily...he won't like it but the harder time you can give the mites, the better. Don't try to feed him while he's being treated for mites anyway.

BTW, I'm doing very badly at multi-tasking today (previous post I MEANT to say that SNAKES often seek relief from mites in their water bowl) but I guess you knew what I meant? -I'm blaming my dogs...