I have mites on my snakes HELP!!

[cchardwick]

Here's an update on my mites: I had a MAJOR infestation! Last week I didn't know what a mite was, this week I'm in shock that I had so many mites on my poor snakes. I have mostly pied combos and a lot of white on my snakes, they were all turning black and white, like they were sprinkled in pepper. Didn't seem like mites to me since I couldn't really see a bug crawling around.

So last night about midnight after a long day I decided to try my new Natural Chemistry Reptile Relief Spray and go through my rack and treat my snakes. I dumped all the bedding, sprayed down the tubs with reptile spray and wiped them dry, then put several layers of paper towels down and changed out the Dixie cup water dishes.

To treat the snakes I pretty much soaked a paper towel with reptile spray, picked up the snakes and let them crawl through the paper towel several times. Out of 17 snakes I removed mites from 16 of them, couldn't even see the mites on most snakes until I wiped them off. I was shocked that it had traveled through my whole rack system.

Some of the ball pythons that had it the worst were soaking in their water dishes, you could see dozens of mites at the bottom of their water bowls.

The very worst snake was my 'Fire Pied' male, looks like he never soaked in the water at all and was covered with black and red spots. I wiped him down and very few came off, so I put him back in the tub with paper towels. About a half hour later I opened up his tub and all the mites had crawled out of his scales and were crawling all over him, it was really creepy! So I wiped him down a second time and this time I wiped off hundreds of mites! And it's true, you only kill them with Reptile Relief when they are in direct contact with the wet solution, or so it seems. They pretty much die instantly if they hit the wet paper towel and are not in the scales of a snake.

So after treating all my snakes until 1:30 AM I hit the sack, woke up early and about 6 AM opened up the Fire Pied tub and found hundreds of dead mites on the paper towels all through the tub and about a dozen more climbing all over him! So I sprayed him a third time! The directions say to only spray once every three days but this seemed like an extreme exception. I also totally cleaned that tub and replaced all the paper towels and sprayed it down with reptile relief spray and wiped it dry before adding new paper towels.

Well I came home from work today and it's been about 18 hours since I first sprayed the Fire Pied and he still had a couple mites crawling on him! However, he is bright white and looks fantastic, no black or red spots, he looks amazing. I simply wiped off the few mites he had with a dry paper towel and put his tail in his water bowl to soak a bit LOL. I also opened up a few of my other tubs and saw a few mites here and there on the paper towels. Looks like I hit the bulk of the infestation but have a way to go before I'm mite free.

I also had a very young 'pastel spider pied' that only had about six meals in his whole life, very young. He started shedding as soon as I wiped him with the reptile spray, that kind of freaked me out so I piled a few paper towels on him and wetted them with water to keep him hydrated, hopefully I won't run into problems that that little guy!