I have mites on my snakes HELP!!

[voodoolamb]

Just a thought re:vacuuming. Whenever dealing with insect infestation and using a vacuum as a weapon, I've always gotten a cheap flea & tick collar that they sell for dogs and leave it in the canister/bag to kill them and prevent reinfestation from crawl outs either from the machine itself or while emptying it.

Glad you are winning the war though!

[cchardwick]

I'm actually keeping the vacuum cleaner in a different room so that should help with the crawl out. I actually didn't get to my rack yesterday and was eager to clean it up today to see how many mites I could find. I went through all of the tubs and I didn't find a single mite! Looks like I finally won the war. I'll probably do a tub cleaning every 2-3 days with the reptile spray just to be sure. Even after two days there were quite a few tubs where the snakes went to the bathroom and stunk them up, I'll probably just open tubs and clean dirty ones every 2 days or so after my mite war is finished.

[tacticalveterinarian]

I'm actually keeping the vacuum cleaner in a different room so that should help with the crawl out. I actually didn't get to my rack yesterday and was eager to clean it up today to see how many mites I could find. I went through all of the tubs and I didn't find a single mite! Looks like I finally won the war. I'll probably do a tub cleaning every 2-3 days with the reptile spray just to be sure. Even after two days there were quite a few tubs where the snakes went to the bathroom and stunk them up, I'll probably just open tubs and clean dirty ones every 2 days or so after my mite war is finished.

No offense, but if you had used the Provent-A-Mite from the start as instructed on the bottle, you wouldn't have to do all the extra labor/work of cleaning daily and quite honestly your war would have been over. Also, Provent-A-Mite is the ONLY EPA & USDA Reptile approved mite spray and quite frankly many of the "organic" or "natural" products on the market may be less expensive but really don't really work effectively.

[PitOnTheProwl]

quite frankly many of the "organic" or "natural" products on the market may be less expensive but really don't really work effectively.

The one time I had mites it worked great for me.
Still continue to use on new animals that go in my quarantine rack too.

[cchardwick]

No offense, but if you had used the Provent-A-Mite from the start as instructed on the bottle, you wouldn't have to do all the extra labor/work of cleaning daily and quite honestly your war would have been over. Also, Provent-A-Mite is the ONLY EPA & USDA Reptile approved mite spray and quite frankly many of the "organic" or "natural" products on the market may be less expensive but really don't really work effectively.

I'm glad it's been working for you, I also see big breeders use Provent a Mite with success. But it's stories like this that spook me, I've spent way too many thousands of dollars to take a chance on killing them, especially since some are very young and have had only a few meals.

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/gener...need-help.html

Personally if I could kill the mites with something even safer than the reptile spray I'd be willing to do even a little more labor to treat my snakes and keep them safe.

[JodanOrNoDan]

I would bet good money that your mites will come back. I am treating with PAM as we speak like I do every month. Pam never killed a snake that I am personally aware of. You realize that the mites can pass a problem from one animal to another right? What you are doing is like trying to kill mosquitos by swatting them as malaria spreads throughout the village. Even a reptile vet has now told you that PAM is safe. What you do with your collection is your business but please realize that your thread may mislead others.

[PitOnTheProwl]

Even a reptile vet has now told you that PAM is safe. What you do with your collection is your business but please realize that your thread may mislead others.

Now I would like to know what is misleading when there are several keepers here that do not use pam and have treated mite problems without use of pam?
There are also several other chemicals that you can use to deal with mites.
I would rather use something that I can use on my animals without worry.
You might want to research more about pam and the neurological problems from animals coming into contact with it when wet.
There have been a couple threads posted about it here if I remember right??

[tacticalveterinarian]

Now I would like to know what is misleading when there are several keepers here that do not use pam and have treated mite problems without use of pam?
There are also several other chemicals that you can use to deal with mites.
I would rather use something that I can use on my animals without worry.
You might want to research more about pam and the neurological problems from animals coming into contact with it when wet.
There have been a couple threads posted about it here if I remember right??

I do agree there are many different ways and products available that can deal with mites.

However, in my experience when dealing with a mite INFESTATION (not just 1 or 2 snakes with a few mites,), PAM is by far the most effective because it stays for 30 days which really helps to stop the life cycle of the mite stages.

[JodanOrNoDan]

Sure you can treat mites without PAM. It is the hard way though. Blood sucking animals transmit disease. I would rather take my chances with the PAM. Every day a mite is alive is a day it can transmit disease. I have been using PAM for quite some time and have never had a problem. Of course I tend to read directions. It needs to be dry before the animal goes back in. In the Army we had a little tool that was very effective called a claymore. These things are very safe (to the user) when used as directed. Printed right on the thing is FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY. You would only not follow those directions one time.

All that said I believe Pit keeps arachnids. If he is keeping them anywhere near his snakes he cannot use PAM, so he would be the one to listen to if you absolutely did not want to go that route.

[cchardwick]

I've been watching like a hawk for them to come back. I went through all the tubs again today and cleaned the ones with poop and sprayed the ones that were dry, no mites at all that I could see in any of the tubs, and the ones that I cleaned out I wiped them down with reptile spray, then with water to rinse and dry them before adding paper towels. I'll continue to go through them every couple days and spot clean. I'm betting that I got them all but you never know... If I even see one mite I'll scrub down the whole rack again. It's very dry here in Colorado so they say the mites can dry out and die a bit easier than humid climates. After two days my balled up soaking wet paper towels in the tubs are completely dried out. I'll be sure to let you know if I see them come back. The red spots on the snake that was infested the most are slowly going away.

Once I get to the point where I have more than about 20 snakes and just one rack I'd probably consider PAM. For multiple racks with hundreds of snakes there's probably no other way to do it than to gas your whole room with something like PAM.