hot sauce and hot shot are definately 2 different things... when using hot shot to treat for mites, you place a strip of it on top of the cage for 3 days, off 4 days, on 3 days, off 4 days, and so on, until your mites are gone... some people will put the hot shot on for like 3 hours a day until they are gone, how effective that it is, I'm not sure. Trust me, I would never let anyone put hot sauce around a snake, or any animal for that matter.