Help with Mites

[Bojangles37]

Hi all, I'm new to the forums and fairly new to herps, but I'm very enthusiastic! I apologize because this will be long winded for a newbie.

Anyways, since I bought my Ball as a baby, he has had mites. This was in July. I'm not sure if he had them at the store or if they started after I got them, I will explain this question later, as I'm sure most will say that it's not possible that he got them after. There were very few at the time, and since I really didn't know what I was looking at, I took no notice. Then I did a little research and recognized the problem, began treating it in August.

Not knowing much about Balls at the time, other than basic husbandry, I found it easiest to buy a simple reptile kit, which worked out really well. It came with bedding called "Repti-bark." I'm sure people are familiar with it. Once I identified the problem, I took him off the bedding, cleaned the whole tank, including furniture, treated him, and continued the course of treatment, but never fully able to eradicate them. I had him living on paper towels and treating him regularly until just recently when the problem appeared to be gone. I treated him one last time, monitored him for a few more days checked him THOROUGHLY (we're talking magnifying glass) and seeing nothing for a few days, I decided that it was safe to put him back on bedding.

I placed him back on the same bedding he was on before, but a new bag, and left him be for a while. He has been eating normally since fairly soon after I got him, I had to force feed at the beginning, but after 2 or 3 times, he has been great, eats anytime offered, even with mites. He had one bad shed, when he definitely had mites, but just shed again recently and it was a MUCH better shed, though not perfect, he'd had a retained eye cap and it came off along with the two new ones.

Well I went home today, he is now at my house so that he has constant care while I'm in and out around winter break at school, and looked in his cage and saw that he was INFESTED with mites, clearly visible to the naked eye and HUGE. I treated him IMMEDIATELY and there were hundreds of dead ones, of all sizes, coming off. Keep in mind, he's still pretty young and NOT a big snake by any means. He was handled very recently and showed signs of getting mites again, but not NEARLY to the extent that they appeared within two days, it worries me a lot because I've read that they can severely dehydrate a small snake very quickly and do lasting damage.

This leads me to my questions, thanks for reading this whole thing if anyone did!!!

1. Is it possible that there are mites in the bedding, possibly eggs or larval stages??

2. Do vets have a better, more effective treatment to completely eradicate mites? I've yet to see an exotic vet with him or her, I'm not sure, so I just call it, him so I don't really know. The treatment that I have seems extremely effective, lots of mites fall off dead immediately, but it can't get them all in one treatment, and I'm sure human error is a factor as well.

Thanks so much for any replies, I'd just love some HELP! Thankfully, he is a very tolerant little critter and he doesn't mind the torture that I put him through.

[Shelby]

Hm.. that sounds like a lot of mites. Are you sure they are snake mites and not some other sort of bug? If you squish the mites you'll see a bit of blood (from them eating it from the snake) I have heard of the bark beddings having bugs sometimes, but not snake mites usually.

Either way.. to get rid of parasites, the best thing you can get is Provent-a-Mite (you can get it here: http://www.pro-products.com/miteandtemp.html) You spray it on the cage and accessories and it kills mites for 30 days. You don't spray it on the animal though.. but the stuff works great.

[Bojangles37]

Hm.. that sounds like a lot of mites. Are you sure they are snake mites and not some other sort of bug? If you squish the mites you'll see a bit of blood (from them eating it from the snake) I have heard of the bark beddings having bugs sometimes, but not snake mites usually.

Either way.. to get rid of parasites, the best thing you can get is Provent-a-Mite (you can get it here: http://www.pro-products.com/miteandtemp.html) You spray it on the cage and accessories and it kills mites for 30 days. You don't spray it on the animal though.. but the stuff works great.

Thanks a lot for the help, I'm 95% sure that they are snake mites, they look the same as the other ones that he had and they definitely have blood in them and get larger as they suck it. They're like little tick type critters but definitely NOT ticks. I might have been exaggerating with HUNDREDS, but that's what it seemed like to me and there were a huge amount in a very short time.

[Sparky1]

Yeah Provent-a-mite i used it and it works great. Also i have found mites in bedding before, they were wood mites but none the less i did not like them on my snake at all. Since it will take a couple days to get the PAM since it can only be ordered online, i would get rid of everything his enclosure, clean it with a dilluted bleach solution. Clean everything and let it soak for a bit, make sure you rinse super good!! While doing this place him in a small tupperware like container with warm water to soak that will get rid of some of them, when you place him back in his enclosure only return two hides prefferably plastic, since they are easier to clean and kill bugs on and his water bowl. Place him on paper towl substrate.
Once you recieve your pam follow the directions and bang no more bugs! Just a hint i now treat all new bedding that i get before it goes into there homes, tha pam will kill everthing! Except the snake.

[Shelby]

Yeah that's good advice, Sparky.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to give him a soak in a container of water every day (unless he has just eaten) since the mites drown and it'll relieve the snake a bit.

[Bojangles37]

Yeah that's good advice, Sparky.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to give him a soak in a container of water every day (unless he has just eaten) since the mites drown and it'll relieve the snake a bit.

Thanks for the help Sparky! He has a very large water bowl, that he definitely soaks in (it gets cleaned often) and has been soaking in more recently because of the mites (I'm assuming.) Should I be soaking him even more often?

It really sucks because I love the look of my pretty setup with bedding in it, is there a better bedding that anyone can recommend? It would be best if it's fairly readily available at Petco or a similar store. I'm going to examine the bedding when I'm at home tomorrow or Sunday, if there are definitely mites (in the bag, not his tank) I may call up the company, I think that I at least deserve the money back for the bags and his treatment. (Am I wrong?)

Edit- These mites definitely burrow under his scales, ESPECIALLY near his belly and under his jaw, but they can be seen walking all over his back, as in today, when they're really bad.

[Shelby]

You can bake the bedding in the oven to kill any nasties.

Personally I use aspen shavings for mine. I like how it looks.. though it's not the same as the dark bedding.

[Sparky1]

Well the mites that could be in the bedding are wood mites and do not attack snakes they just dont look good crawling around. The mites you have are snake mites and need to be treated with PAM. So yours did not come from the bedding, he brought them home with him. So if you get some PAM and do the other part before it gets there he will be better off. As for his soaking its not good for them to soak that much it can lead to way bigger problems like scale rot. If it were me i would do the soaking for at most an hour a day and change his water bowl to something that he can not fit in until you get him treated with some PAM.
As for bedding any natural wood product can contain wood mites, the only ones that wont are like aspen and sani ships. Those products should never have anything like mites, if you like the bark i would not use it again until he is might free for at least a month. Once you go back to the wood substrate you can treat that with the PAM as well before you place it in his house and guarantee no bugs!

[hoo-t]

I have heard of snake mites coming from new bedding IF you buy it from a retailer that also sells snakes, and their snakes have mites. Mites travel, and its entirely possible for them to find their way to the bedding in the store.

Also, since they do travel, you want to think about treating the area around your snake's cage, especially if there is carpet there. One reason that mites are hard to get rid of is that most treatments don't kill the eggs. You treat, get rid of the mites, the eggs hatch out, and you have mites again. Provent-a-Mite will take care of that problem. You can use the Provent-a-Mite to treat the area around the cage as well.

Your best bet is a combination of everything you've seen here. Clean and disinfect the cage and all its furnishings. Use paper towels or newspaper for substrate at least until the mites are permanently erradicated. Give your snake a 30 min - hour soak every day until you have treated with Provent-a-Mite. One word of caution that I didn't see here, but may have just overlooked - be sure to follow the directions on the Provent-a-Mite to the letter! Allow the cage and substrate to thoroughly dry before putting the snake back in the cage!

Good luck!
Steve

[frankykeno]

Order the Provent-A-Mite and use exactly as directed (it does NOT get sprayed directly on the snake). It sounds like all the treatments in the past may well have killed the visible adult mites but didn't get the eggs which are just constantly hatching out more mites to breed and make more eggs. P.A.M. will break that cycle.

For now I'd strip that enclosure down to a bare minimum of stuff, clean it thoroughly, and just put down layers of pure white Viva brand paper towels instead of any loose substrate until this issue is fully dealt with. Also the water dish doesn't need to be big enough for your snake to soak in. It's likely soaking due to the mite infestation, as most healthy ball pythons do not soak on a regular basis.

If you got this snake from a typical chainstore type pet store it likely came with the mites. Anyways, it really doesn't matter where they came from, they need to be dealt with once and for all as mites do affect your snake's health.