Reptile & Amphibian Forums

'Reptile Relief', though definately effective in slowly eliminating mites, seems to be working too slow for me (too many treatments necessary to get the job done). I think I'm going to try the dilute ivermectin solution because of the residual effect. 'Reptile Relief will kill any mites it comes in contact with, but only for about an hour. From what I hear (on here, mainly), ivermectin will kill any mite it comes in contact with for up to a week.

So I was just wondering, if I make this spray of ivermectin and water, am I supposed to spray the snake down with it too? Or just the enclosure? Also, if I am supposed to spray the snake with it, do I have to be careful not to spray him in the face/on the head? I just want to know any of the up sides/downsides to using this treatment, and any safety concerns.

So any more information would be greatly appreciated!

I don't remeber the dilution formula, but it should do the trick. Avoid the eyes with the tratment. You can use olive oil on the eye. PO works just as well.
Jesse
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Jesse

You can't beat Ivermectin. The stuff is awesome for treating the cage and contents. I would soak the snake in reptile relief while your using Ivermectin to clean everything else.

n/p

n/p

1 cc of commercially available paste I think it is 1% paste. Dilute that into 1 quart of water. AT this concentration it is completely safe. You do not need to worry about spraying it in your snakes face or even your own face. Ivermectin has pretty low toxicity and can be administered orally at 100 x that concentration, HOWEVER, I do not recommend oral administration. Ivermectin is approved in many countries for human use (used commonly in africa as the only cure for river blindness) so you do not have to worry about your own health. Do remove the water bowl when you are spraying. Use news paper as a substrate for a month until you are sure they are gone. An additional spray down a week later will ensure success.

This is MUCH safer than using NIX or any other product being used as it is not intended to be used. This was recommended to me by a reptile vet and is also the recommendation found in Klingbergs book and the ball python manual. Simply it will take care of your problem.

Good luck
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

Do you know whether folks in Africa take this stuff internally to fight river blindness or do they apply it externally? Does it treat the blindness once blindness has occurred or is it only a preventative for after one has been in the water?

Thanks,

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

The American Chemical Society called ivermectin one of the 100 greatest drugs ever produced...
It doesn't fix blindness, but it can cure the disease before it causes blindness.

Here is some info from the Mayo clinic

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-information/DR202311

Ivermectin (eye-ver-MEK-tin) is used in the treatment of certain worm infections. It is used to treat river blindness (onchocerciasis) and a certain type of diarrhea (strongyloidiasis). It may also be used for some other kinds of worm infections.

Ivermectin appears to work by paralyzing and then killing the offspring of adult worms. It may also slow down the rate at which adult worms reproduce. This results in fewer worms in the skin, blood, and eyes.

Ivermectin is available only with your doctor's prescription, in the following dosage form:

Oral
*

Tablets (U.S., Canada, Africa, Europe, and South America)
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

It is interesting to note that ivermectin is actually a natural product produced by Streptomyces avermatilis (a gram positive bacteria commonly found in soil). Some of my current research is actually working with various species of Streptomyces...
If you were to smell actively growing streptomyces, invarialbly you would say that they smell like fresh potting soil. Truth is, fresh potting soil smells like them, because it is loaded with them...food for thought

Very few people realize that over 70% of commercial antibiotics come from Streptomyces (yeah, even bacteria want to kill bacteria). Think of the arms race going on in your yard right now. Bacteria killing bacteria, resistent bacteria developing, new antibiotics being produced...
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

So what does this have to do with African rats?

Sorry, I couldn't resist. You mentioned your research. What is your profession? The work sounds interesting.

Thanks,

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

Strangely enough I have my PhD in Chemistry, but I work primarily with engineering microorganisms. Chemistry is one of those divisions that has exhuasted all of its own fundamental research, so it is gradually taking over biology as well...

Anyway, right now I am working on understanding how various Streptomyces produce some of their antibiotics. I am currently working on the antibiotic Fosfomycin (produced by Streptomyces wedmorensis and Streptomyces fradiae) and the anti-malari drug Fosmidomycin (produced by Streptomyces lavendulea). That is another one that gets a lot of use in Africa...poor Africa, they have like every disease and 10 x worse than any other country.

The hope of our research group is that we can engineer bacteria that will over produce antibiotics or antimalarials or antiparasitic drugs in order to make them much cheaper (especially for people that can't afford them in Africa).
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

Your work sounds very interesting. I never enjoyed research as much as I enjoyed plant work, but engineering is a different field. When I went for my second master's degree, I did my research on a mariculture project. Our hope was to get oyster and shrimp growing with artificial seawater and then do a process optimization on their feeding. The engineering part of the work was the process optimization, but I was one of the first of my professor's students. Being the first meant that I was stuck with trying to learn to keep the oysters alive. He was an engineer who'd been studying this area for years. His wife was a marine biologist with similar interests. Both of them looked at my setup and said that everything should have been right. Unfortunately, all of my oysters died. I think that failure is part of why I've been so nervous as I tried to keep snakes.

I wish you well with what you do. The work is worthwhile, and the technical challenges sound interesting. I think I'd still rather make my living with non-living things. Living things could be a fun hobby, but I'd be too frustrated making my living with them.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

Yeah that is funny, with bacteria you do not have too many problems with them dying, instead, you have too many problems with them living. Especially the ones you are not trying to culuture...lol

The nice thing is that unlike oysters, bacteria reproduce in about 20 minutes to an hour instead of a few weeks or months, and you can store them at -80C to keep them premanently. Which always makes me laugh when people say that frozen mice have less of a chance of spreading disease. -80C preserves microorganisms, doesn't kill them.

Anyway, have you put your knowledge of oysters to work in breeding BPs?
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

I can see where something that reproduces in a couple of hours would be easier to study. If you're doing things correctly, you should have evidence within a few hours. If they are all dead or failing to thrive, you know that something is wrong and you can change a variable. My oyster (and clam) experiments would have been easier if I had feedback that quickly.

I always thought that the point of freezing rodents wasn't to kill the bacteria but to kill bigger organisms that could live on a mouse. I would think that freezing for some length of time would kill most mites. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought bugs survived hard freezes by burying themselves in something that wouldn't freeze completely. In a frozen rodent, they'd freeze and die.

I can't say that I ever learned enough about oysters to apply to other critters. I learned some things not to do, but the real problem with my setup was likely the lack of a bacteria in the water. The guy who followed me lost about 10,000 shrimp, and the professor finally agreed to pay for a complete analysis of our water. The analysis showed that a common bacteria that was supposed to be in about every drop of water that one would find any open container wasn't living in our tanks. Without that water, we couldn't create a healthy ecosystem.

While I was struggling with my oysters, some guys in a biology-type department were working on native, fresh-water mussels. Their project was to raise the mussels to adulthood or near adulthood and try to restock many of the waterways of our state. They checked out our lab one day and copied an idea I had to make cheap oyster bed waterways in common household guttering. My idea never worked for me. My idea worked very well for them.

I think one grad student ended up taking a bottle of water from their system to ours. Their water had the bacteria needed for the system, and our setup worked afterwards. I had finished by this time.

In any case, I'm not trying to breed ball pythons right now. I'm just trying to find the right husbandry techniques to keep one animal alive, healthy, and happy. If I succeed with her, maybe I'll think of breeding someday. I really don't have time or room to house that many snakes in the way that I like to house them. I really don't have an interest in having racks full of snakes that I only see when I tend to them. Eventually, I'd also have to find homes for the young ones. I don't want people coming by all the time to buy snakes nor do I want the hassles of the license required to grow snakes for profit. I'd give them away if I knew enough people who wanted them, but snakes are a long way from having as many welcoming homes as dogs are. I appreciate the efforts of those who are breeding, but I'm not ready to join their ranks.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.