Help...Came home from a Business Trip to Find Mites!

[LLLReptile]

Ok everyone, I came home from a three week business trip and went in my office/reptile room and saw mites crawling around on my BTS. I don't know how they got there, my wife said she hadn't taken any of the reptiles outside, she had basically just been feeding them for the 3 weeks. That being said at this point I know I need to treat the issue. I have been doing a lot of reading as this is the first time I have had to deal with mites and I am seeing a lot of conflicting info. I know i need to treat the animal and the enclousure as well as everything inside. I am picking up some PAM and reptile relief after work. I have two other snakes in the room and a Beardie across the house. I assume that I will need to treat the snakes and their enclosures as well? I didn't see any mites on them, but since they are in the same room I figured they have been exposed, but what about the beardie? Are these things like fleas in the sense that they will infest all the reptiles and furniture? Also the office is carpeted and I have clothing in the closest. Does the entire room need to be treated now? Some atricles have said treat the animal and the enclosure and thats it, others have said you basically need to isolate the entire room, pull everything out, wash all fabrics, steam clean the carpet and then you still may not get rid of them. Any input would be appreciated, I have a feeling that I will be at this all night long.

You'll just need to treat the animals and their enclosures; while the mites can and will traverse across carpet, they don't infest mammals, so if there's no reptiles they can feed on...they won't hang around. Once you get rid of them, they should stay gone.

Please go back to the Oside store and let them know you're the person Jen sent them (I'm emailing them now to expect you). Treat the skink as you would a snake in this article , just be careful with the mite treatment around the eyes. You may want to spray the reptile relief on a cotton ball or something to get it on and around his head.

I would treat the cages for the snakes, but soak them in water and then look them over carefully before actually going all out in treating them with reptile relief as well. Provent a Mite will make sure that the mites don't get into the other cages. The beardie is probably okay, but mites can get to beardies as well if they're not able to bask warm enough - a spray of provent a mite in that cage as well wouldn't be a bad precaution.

At this point, mites have infested herps worldwide thanks to herpetoculture, so they could have come from anywhere - even wild populations of reptiles have them, and if someone brings an infested pet into a pet store and they fall on the ground, crawl on you, or on bedding, etc... it's easy to pick them up. Even once you eradicate them from your collection, keep the provent a mite around and re-treat your bedding each time you completely clean out your cages. It's what I do at home and here at the breeding center, even though at both places, I know there are no mites. Helps to keep it that way!

-Jen