Posted by:
laurarfl
at Mon Feb 18 09:24:47 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by laurarfl ]
I agree, PAM is the way to go on this one. If you call the owner of Pro Products, he is a wealth of information. When I adopted my Burm, he had mites, but not a severe infestation. He had them in the scales around his nose and eyes, mouth, and in between his body scales.
This is what I ended up doing:
First I soaked the snake. I used a big Rubbermaid and filled it up with water and added a few drops of liquid dishwashing soap. This breaks the surface tension of the water, allowing the mites to drown. I left the snake in this for about 30 minutes. I wouldn't do it too often because the soap is drying to a snake's skin. I tried Reptile Relief, but it didn't do much for the mites under the scales and I couldn't get it around his face.
While the snake was soaking, I cleaned the cage thoroughly with a disinfectant spray and a dry cloth. I sprayed the cage with mite spray according to directions and let it dry. I also used newspaper as a substrate and sprayed the individual sheets of newspaper and let them dry. Every time I changed the paper I sprayed it. I sprayed the cage stand, every nook and cranny around the trim on the cage, and 2ft of carpet around the cage stand. To prevent infestations on my other snakes, I sprayed a cloth and wiped a barrier around the top outside rim of the other cages. I have a bagless vacuum, so I even sprayed the vac filter when I dumped the canister.
Using these steps, I was able to get rid of the mites very quickly. Once in a while I would see one still down in the crack on his nose, but it would come off in his next shed. It's been 6 months and I haven't seen mites anywhere (knock on wood).
I'm pretty cautious about using chemicals around my animals, but the PAM and Equate bedding sprays and pretty safe if you follow the directions. You don't need to let it puddle, and you have to let it dry before you put the snake back in. Just a side note, these products ARE toxic to hognose snakes and their relatives, if you have any.
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RE: I've tried it all - laurarfl, Mon Feb 18 09:24:47 2008