Sooner or later mites make their way into everyone's collection. Always makes me laugh when someone says "not mine".
Because someone gave me the gift that keeps on giving 2X I came up with the following procedure.
1. soak the snakes in a sterilite/rubbermaid tub with warm water, just water for the first 30 minutes and only deep enough so their backs are out of the water. They will probably drink some of this.
2. Empty out their tank, box, cage, etc. at this time
3. Spray down the cage, water bowl, hides, etc. with a mix of water and NIX or the store brand of NIX. NIX is lice shampoo and I would mix it at about 1/2 ounce to a 32 ounce bottle of water. Spray up into the edges and corners. Let it sit.
4. go back to the snakes, add some more warm water with just a little dish soap. Enough to have some bubbles most of the top surface of the water. Let them soak for about 30 minutes.
5. rinse the cage, box, etc. real good and make sure to get into the corners, top edges, etc.
6. dry the cage and put in paper towels, no substrate, and no water bowl.
7. remove the snakes from the soapy water, spray a paper towel with the NIX solution you mixed for spraying down the cage. Let them slide through this paper towel while holding with a firm grip.
8. Sprinkle a small amount of sevin dust in the tank to lightly cover the paper towels.
9. place the snakes back in their cage, box, etc.
Once a day check the paper towels. Also, once a day or every other day,spray a paper towel with the NIX solution and let them slide through it while holding with a firm grip. Even if they are all gone, repeat the above procedure in 1 week.
I believe the problem is that you were not getting the mites or their eggs that were under the scales of your snakes. The soapy water solution will get those and drown them, destroy the eggs, etc. Repeating the process in a week is important as is spraying the paper towel with the solution, letting them slide through the towel. This is a way to confirm if anything new is hatching out. Rinse them off with plain water and let them drink for a few minutes every 3 days or so during this process. You do not want them taking the sevin into their water bowl. Once the NIX solution dries it becomes inactive within a few minutes.
If you still have a problem, let me know.
John Q

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