Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone,

So last night I was going through my daily reptile routine after work. After checking all the usual stuff, i picked up my baby albino burm boy. I was handling him and everything without a problem as usual when i noticed a little brown dot on him. At closer inspection, it still looked like dirt, so i scraped it off w/my fingernail and picked it up.....and it moved to my suprise lol. I immediately squished the little bugger in my fingers and it left a nice blood smear on my finger...yum . I inspected him more throroughly and picked off 2 more and found several more i could not reach due to them being underneath his scales. After having a brief heart attack, i collected myself and went to action. I immediately put him in a tupperware dish to soak for a little while and emptied his cage. I use Bed-A-Beast substrate for my snakes and have never had a problem with it, but i have heard of mites stowing away in those types of subs before. After cleaning the hell outta my tank, I cut up a clean towel and fitted it into the aquarium for carpet. I'm going to switch it to paper towels today probly and change it daily of course. I cleaned all of his stuff, didn't bake his log, but will do tonite, (i feared it would burn). I'm going to be picking up repti-relief, i have heard a lot of good things about it, any opinions? After all of the cleaning, i let him soak for little while and put him back in the cage to relax. He shed last week, not perfect, needed a little assistance, but otherwise has been happy and healthy, eating well, great temprement, active, curious. I've had him for a little over 2 wks and he has never come into contact w/any other animals since i've had him. I checked my redtail baby girl and couldn't find any on her at all!?!? I don't get it, i use the same substrate and she plays on the same floor when i take her out. Maybe i'm just not seeing them, i'm going to treat her as if she has them as well just in case. When i inspected the pest, it looks basically like a dark brown speck of dirt. It's sooooo tiny, i could barely tell it was a living creature at all. Is this a mite or a tick? I would assume mite due to it's small size, all of the ticks i've ever seen have been much bigger. Sorry for the long post, i'm just really worried and want to correct this ASAP. I take care of my snakes and it really shocked me to see these things considering i think i've done everything in my power to keep this from happening. Any help or opinions on how to take care of this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Jason

PS-I have 2 ferrets in the same room as them, is it possible that mites came from them? They have never been in contact w/each other, but they share the same room and the ferrets do run around on the floor during the day (not while the snakes are out).

The shared floor is a great way to spread the mites around. Be carefull. I would have quarantined this new burm, it's possible he's had the mites all along. Let they seller know that it might be the case so he can check out his own collection.

Go ahead with the mite treatment, but be very carefull to follow the directions. You're dealing with young animals here and they'll be more susceptable to overdosing. It's better to error on to little, and having to treat a bit longer, than to give too much. Being cautious, it won't hurt to bring this up with a vet on your "new pet" exam. Something to consider whether mites are a problem or not.

Good luck and let us know if you have any problems.

Ian

Alright, i went home on my lunch break and bought some Mite-Off by ZooMed and sprayed it on him and my redtail. I followed the directions as they said, spraying over entire body, i made sure to stay clear of their eyes. I don't think i used too much, i was careful. I sprayed both aquariums as well, as directed.

As far as the floor sharing, that will be stopping today. I'll be transferring the ferrets to another room. Yeah, i knew i should have quarantined him, but hindsight is 20/20 and i can't change anything about that now....lesson learned lol. I informed the seller and he's going to check it out and get back to me. I have a feeling he had them before i got him. I've never had mites before and this seems a little too convenient to be a coincedence.

I'm going to do some serious DECON work tonight and lay siege upon these little buttheads. If the problem persists and gets any worse, i'll be calling a vet. I'm planning on taking them both in for a checkup soon, i'm about to get a female green conda so i was waiting until after i got her so i could bring them all in at the same time, the vet will give me a kickass package deal that way. But if this progresses any more, i won't be waiting. I'm also going to soak both of them in soapy water, i keep hearing that is pretty effective way to get'em off the snake.

thanks for the info, i really appreciate it. I'll keep ya'll updated on the progress. thanks again
Jason

Sounds good. I've also heard good things about the soapy water bath. YOu don't need anything super concentrated, just think dish water. It won't eliminate the mites but will likely reduce their numbers greatly.

Ian

So here's what i did.

Got home, flipped on animal planet and went to cleaning. I cleaned out the snake's cages top to bottom 2 times over, replaced with paper towels for substrate. I had my burm boy soak in some soapy water for about 2 hours. I realized it's a pain to keep them in the soaking dish if they don't want to lol. I ended up having to put a makeshift screentop on it so that i could get him to stay in it long enough. Everything that could not be cleaned was thrown out....including all the live plants I had in the red-tail's cage.. . I cleaned the room they're in from top to bottom, vacuuming god only knows how many times. If the ferrets had anything to do with the bug problem, i have eliminated that problem once and for all. I'd been trying to find a new home for them for a long time (me and my wife separated and i got stuck w/them) and while i was cleaning last night, one of my friends called up wanting to take'em home YAY!! . No offense to ferrets, or ferret lovers, they're cute animals and all, i'm just not much of a furry animal person. So, after 6 hours of cleaning from top to bottom, I pulled my Albino Boy (his name is Mitch, that way i can just call him that) out of the soaking dish. I inspected him, pulled off 3 mites immediately, all dead. I managed to get about 5 more out from underneath his scales, all of them were dead as well. I think this is working very well so far. All of the mites i have seen have been dead. I'm most worried about the ones on his head. There are a couple ones i can see under his scales on his bottom jaw, i don't know if they're alive or dead. I would like to be able to pick'em off for him, but I don't wanna stress him out by having to hold him down and pick at him. He handled everything really well too, no bites or aggression of any kind. In conclusion, i think that this method is being pretty effective. I'll be Decontaminating both tanks again tonite and soaking him again. I'm going to do this until i think the problem has been eradicated. I'll update any changes

thanks again
Jason

Good job! Remember the snake will shed any dead mites (and living ones too) with the skin, so treatment right after a shed skin often yeilds the best results.

Ian

Just a quick note. I picked up a new Boa yesterday and thought it had buggs. The lady at the pet store used reptile reliefe on her while we were talking. We deturmind it must have just been durt. Well today I found that not to be true. I found a few more on her. Lucky for me I purchased a large bottle of reptile reliefe with her so I used it and just ran my hands over her after spraying and quite a few dead mites came off. I am hoping her problem is only a small one and dose not spread. Unfortunatly I dont curently have the facilitys to house her in any other room so my fingers are crossed that I keep the mites on her or dead and not in the other cages.
My Research and Collection "New server"

So, I just got my first ever snake a few days ago, a baby black rat snake...

And I think she has Mites... black/brownish speckles that move...

so from reading these entries, I understand I need to empty and clean the cage and everything in it. Then soak her in soapy water for 2 hours and also get some spray stuff from the store that I'll need to spray over her to kill the mites.

After that, I need to keep her cage pretty empty except paper towel until they are all gone?
and can I catch mites myself? (like, will they live on me?) or the cats? they're not in contact, but I hold the snake in my room, which is where the cats roam too..

so Besides vacumming, should I get my cats checked out or something???

am I missing anything?

How often do I keep doing routine cleaning and keeping my snake quarintined?