Mites :(

[Whitney Scheib]

So, somehow over the pat couple weeks I ended up with Mites. Seeing as only 3 out of 6 of my snakes have them, and they are all on Aspen, we are guessing that the aspen substrate we bought was infested. Both my BP's and my king snake have them so far.

What do you use that works best for mites?

I can't buy any products for them til friday, and if I get something, I want to make sure 100% that it will work.

so far what I have done is Took my king snake out, and soaked her in a tub of water that had betadine mixed in it til it looked like a light tea, for about 45 minutes. I also took her enclosure and emptied all the bedding, hides etc. I took her cage and water bowl and rinsed them out a few times, then washed them down with a diluted windex solution since I have no bleach. I rinsed a few times, then filled the enclosure up with the hottest water I could find, and then covered up the holes with a towel, and steamed the cage for about 45 minutes as well. I rinsed it out again about ten times, then dried it out completely. Put her on paper, with brand new hides and a clean water bowl. I checked her over a few hours after, and no signs of them so far.

What product can I spray everything down with to help kill them faster? I can't order anything online, so it will have to be something I can buy locally.

Thanks!

[John1982]

I can't suggest any of the mite killing products because I don't use them. I can tell you that with mites, it's WAR. It usually takes me a couple months to eradicate mites if I bring in an infested animal. I do daily soaks in plain, lukewarm water and clean their enclosure like I'm Super OCD. You can ask people who use it but I think I've heard of applying provent-a-mite on bags of substrate when they're bought to insure they're "clean" when you start digging into them. Good luck and Godspeed!

[SinCityBPs]

Mites Suck! (Obvious)

I had a mite outbreak about 2.5 months ago from some live rats (food) I purchased at a pet store with some extra friends included (my best guesstimation of where they came from as I follow strict quarantine with new snakes).

After trying everything, soaking, extremely thorough cleaning, mite sprays (note: I didn't try PAM), etc. I was losing the battle, and they spread to a couple other snakes very quickly... I read on here, and remember a friend using in the past the No Pest Strips. I went to Home Depot and picked 1 HotShot No Pest Strip up for about $5, hung it in my snake room (about 10'x10' size room), and kept the door closed as much as possible. After 2 days, I found two dizzily crawling and pretty much fell off the original snake when I picked him up. After a week, I found no more. I waited another week and thoroughly cleaned all my racks and tanks again.

It has been about a little over month now since my final cleaning, and I have not seen a mite since.

I still have the no pest strip hanging in my snake room, and plan to keep it there. If I ever see an outbreak again, I will go get a new one, as I was very happy with the result and zero effect/stress to my snakes.

Hope this helps.

[Whitney Scheib]

Thanks! I did some research, and didn't like the effect that the sprays could have on the snakes, if done wrong. I heard the strips work well too. Right now, Im just trying to clean and clean and clean to get rid of them. The only new snake I have had come in lately, was a corn, and its a snow corn so seeing mites on him would be EASY. But he's 100% clean. Yet hes on the aspen too?

Im not sure where they came from, but I know only 3 have them so far. When I checked over my boa last night who is also relatively new, I had showered, changed clothes, etc, and I didn't see any on him.

Right now, its the soaks, the cleaning, etc. Its being a huge pain at this point. I just want them gone so they don't hurt my snakes