Really bad Mites! :(

[Little Miss Strange]

Please help me, I noticed a couple mites on my BP and a couple days later went to do something about it and realized he has SO SO SO MANY! I'm so upset at myself for not noticing sooner, i love him (well her i think but her name is monty) I look over sometimes and her head is poking out as if she just needed to make a little appearance or check things out outside her little rock hut and makes me cheer up!

I also just got a Red Tailed Colombian Boa through a guy who ordered one in at my work (I work at a pet store) and long story short I'm pretty sure he was afraid of it and I got it for free!

But now that monty has such terrible mites I'm not only heartbroken knowing she could very well die but also because my beautiful new boa may get them too!!!

Nowhere around here sells provent-a-mite so what can I do... Are there any other products I should look out for? I'm going to every pet store around to see what they have...

ANYTHING helps!
PLEASE I don't want to lose her I love her so much and I feel terrible because I thought I was doing so well (she was neglected before I got her) I was told she was a boy and then got her home and she wouldn't eat because she had retained eye caps from god knows when she had shed last and I did what I could and I don't think she was the right size either but I got her to eat, she eats any color frozen thawed and is very hand tame. I once had her around my neck in the car for an hour and she didn't mind at all

anyway... please help...

[omnibus2]

Okay well calm down first. Don't panic.

Just order provent a mite from the original website, that's what I did. After that follow the instructions, and spray it for at least a few days.

Until it arrives, I suppose you could clean the tank, or move the bp to a new enclosure if possible.

[nixer]

Please help me, I noticed a couple mites on my BP and a couple days later went to do something about it and realized he has SO SO SO MANY! I'm so upset at myself for not noticing sooner, i love him (well her i think but her name is monty) I look over sometimes and her head is poking out as if she just needed to make a little appearance or check things out outside her little rock hut and makes me cheer up!

I also just got a Red Tailed Colombian Boa through a guy who ordered one in at my work (I work at a pet store) and long story short I'm pretty sure he was afraid of it and I got it for free!

But now that monty has such terrible mites I'm not only heartbroken knowing she could very well die but also because my beautiful new boa may get them too!!!

Nowhere around here sells provent-a-mite so what can I do... Are there any other products I should look out for? I'm going to every pet store around to see what they have...

ANYTHING helps!
PLEASE I don't want to lose her I love her so much and I feel terrible because I thought I was doing so well (she was neglected before I got her) I was told she was a boy and then got her home and she wouldn't eat because she had retained eye caps from god knows when she had shed last and I did what I could and I don't think she was the right size either but I got her to eat, she eats any color frozen thawed and is very hand tame. I once had her around my neck in the car for an hour and she didn't mind at all

anyway... please help...

http://www.pro-products.com/ its cheaper online than most sotres anyway
when you get it treat every cage as on the bottle.
while your waiting..
you could try to rinse some of the mites off, you could give it a bath to help get rid of some of the adult mites (wont do anything to the eggs) the bath water should be deeper than half the side of the snake

[Little Miss Strange]

ok, and how long does it take a snake to die from mites, I'm very worried.

[spitfireashlea]

Lol....sorry to laugh, but...ok nvm.


You're snake is not going to die from mites. It can get a upper respitory infection, but they are treatable if treated early enough.

Instead of posting on this forum, you should go to the suggested websites and order the mite medication.

While waiting for the medication to arrive, disinfect the cage. Put everything (tank, hide's, any decorations, water dishes) into a tub full of STEAMING hot hot water. Add some bleach if you have any, if not, just make sure the water is very hot.

Leave all items in the cage for about an hour or until the water cools down.

Let set till everything dry's, COMPLETELY DRY! If you used bleach make sure everything does not smell like bleach. If there is the slightest smell of bleach on anything, soak it in cold water until the smell dissipates.

Once everything is dry, put paper towel down as your substrate. Cover the bottom of your cage with 3 layers of paper towel, then crumple some up and put it around the tank. Put alot in, this will help your snake feel comfortable. Put it's hides back in, but I do not suggest adding anything else.

Doing this will help keep any more mites from popping up, but will not get rid of the mites all together. Once you have cleaned the cage, soak your snake in luke warm water. Not hot, not cold, warm. Fill up a sink and dip your snake in, rub the scales. Do this for about 15 minutes.

Soak your snake every day until the medicine arrives. Then follow the instructions. You should clean the tank as described above once the medicine arrives as well.

GL, PM me if you have any questions.

*Edit*

Use this time to handle your snake. They are hard to spot, but if you feel your snake, you will feel raised scales. Usually under these are mites. Squeeze gently on the scales as if your pushing something out from under neath the scales, the mites will come out. Make sure you do not let the mites go back on your snake.

Also, how bad is this infestation? Are they in the eyes? Look at your snakes eyes, are the scales around the eyes swollen? Abnormal? Are there black specs around the eyes? What about the vents? Any down there? Take a look and let us know.

This is what mites would look like. In the water dish, in the bedding, on your snake. Little black specs.

[Little Miss Strange]

ok, what I've already done, before I even posted, I had an extra 10 gallon and hood (she's only about 2 feet long maybe a few extra inches and about an inch and a half in diameter) I cleaned this tank and put down paper towels and but a heat lamp on her after rubbing her down with olive oil (as per the only suggestion I had at the time.) I took her 20 gallon and put it in the bathtub as well as both hides and the food dish (i threw out all the substrate and the fake plants and stuff, I'll buy new ones once she's healthy) I didn't have bleach but we used every type of chemical and cleaner in the house and sprayed down the hides and the dish and dumped it all over the inside of the tank as well, then boiled the kettle and dumped that all in the crevices of the tank and all over (where I put the cleaners) and all over the hides and the hides are in a tupperware container so we filled this with steaming water and the hides&dish are fully submersed...

because i had the extra tank I'll keep her regular tank clean and not put her back in until I have the provent-a-mite and have her mites gone.

I'm not at home right now but as soon as I get home I'll check her eyes and vent, I know that her scales are raised and I'll do the bath/massage when we get home, the only issue is how she doesn't like her head poked at and the scales on her "chin" are pretty bad like, bearded dragon bad, it actually kept me up last night thinking about it

Hopefully rubbing her down will help a little until the product gets here, I live in Newfoundland (an island in atlantic canada) so I don't know hoe long it will take it to get here.

thanks for the help.
I'll update later

[Little Miss Strange]

oh and it's definitely mites, that's exactly what it looks like, and there was white (eggs and larvae) on the food dish and hides, ESPECIALLY his favourite hide, that was rotten!
but the regular tank and hides are clean now, I'll do it all again when I get the product just to be sure.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Use Provent-A-Mite (order it online), and consider using some sort of carpet flea spray around outside the cage, because those mites will crawl out and go EVERYWHERE. Soak the snake, clean the cage like a fiend, wipe the snake down throughly, and keep doing this every couple of days until the spray arrives. It's not necessary to clean the cage with EVERYTHING--just use a 10% bleach solution after you clean it with soap and water.

As for the new boa--keep it WAY the heck away from your ball python, and use very scrupulous quarantine measures. I probably won't ever own boas, because they can be asymptomatic carriers of IBD. A 6th month quarantine MINIMUM is recommended for boas, because they can harbor the virus for that long before showing symptoms. A few can harbor it for years, though, without showing any sign--you just can't ever be sure that it's safe.

Unfortunately, if the boa does carry IBD, and the ball contracts it, you'll know--while it may not kill the boa, it WILL kill the ball.