Reptile & Amphibian Forums

arse.

I have not had to deal with a single snake mite in over 10 years so I was a little surprised this morning when I found one of my snakes soaking in a water bowl with some little mite sinkers in it! They are smaller then any other mites I've seen and they are all tan, no darker black or red ones. Tricky things are the EXACT color of the aspen I use. I don't really know how it got past my quaranteen room, I have only brought in two new snakes in the past year... maybe it came in with a live pet store mouse (One little anoying bugger will still only take live.)

So I spent all day proventamiting all my cages and sterilizing everything. It was a blast. hahaha... not. I will say its amazing what you find when you pull the rack away from the wall. I just got a new small sexing probe, a nice pen, and a nice long pair of forceps!

The last time I had any mite problems was long before I used racks. I like to wait until there is no odor of preventamite before placing animals back in cages. This is easy in tanks but my rack has been airing out for over 3 hours now. When I close the drawers for a few minutes then give them a sniff, they still have that smell? Has anyone used provent-a-mite in a rack before? How long did you wait?

Also does anyone know if there are any issues using this stuff with gravid females? Of course this has to happen right when I don't want to be messing with and stressing out all my gravid females. GGRRRR.

that specie of mite yet, i may go back to routine flea&tick powder routine now.

There is a kind of mite that lives in wood shavings but they don't go on the snakes.

I know the wood mites your thinking of. They have a more oval body shape. These were normal mite shaped just smaller and lighter. They were definetely imbedded under the scales and causing obvious discomfort to the snakes.

I feel for you ! Bad time to have to deal with a mite issue. Good luck getting it all cleaned up quickly and without much stress on your breeders.

I don't think you need to tell me how much a pain in the a$$ they are lol. So many bad memories there lol.
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake
Updated 3/2/06

I've had the mite curse a couple times and used pro-vent-a-mite exclusively and I strongly recommend letting the tubs air overnight (after spraying)before placing the snake inside. Otherwise, I've sprayed the racks and carpeting with the snakes in the room and leave the door open (with a small fan) overnight to air out. No experience with gravid snakes but hatchlings are temporarily affected if exposed to fresh pro-vent-a-mite in the cage. I'd assume they could also keel over from a heavy dose in the cage.
My condolences with the mite curse, get the old bedding as far away from the house as possible and let fresh air into the snake room after the application(s).
Makes me itch just thinking about it. Jeff

Hi,

Wood mites are very common in aspen bedding. They are harmless to the snakes though. They don't seem to feed on the snakes, only crawl on them. It's tough to eraticate them while constantly introducing them and their favorite substrate (wood shavings). Good luck.

Will

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Well, the mites you described don't sound like snake mites either. Visible snake mites are black. I've had the mis-fortune of see millions of them in my time around snakes. From what you've described, they sound exactly what comes with the occasional bag of the aspen bedding that I've purchased. However they could certainly be something else, I don't claim to know much about the different types of mites. The the type I need to know about. Just trying to help with the info you provided. No need to start throwin' around the exclamation points.

Whatever they are, PAM ought to do it. I would personally never use that stuff around gravid females though. I don't care what the can says. I had an adult king that had a very bad reaction to that stuff once. She went into horrendous convulsions within a minute of my spraying a cage several feed from her. I was sure she was a goner. If she was gravid, she would have popped every egg inside her. What ever they are good luck in getting rid of them if they are causing you problems.

Will

Toward the end of that first paragraph it should have said that "I am only concerned about the type that I need to know about."

meant by the exclamation point. It was out of frustration not attitude. I'm pretty sure thats how these suckers snuck into my collection... I was seeing them but THOUGHT that they were wood mites. Looking carefully I can see now that they look a little different from the woodmites (woodmites are longer and skinnier).

On two of my snakes, they were packed in around the eyes and another had them imbeded in many belly scutes. All three of these snakes started doing the itchy twisting "I have mites" dance on the same day. However they definetely do not look like the normal black snake mites I always used to see. I will get new batteries for my good camera tommorow and try to take a pic with a macro lense... but they might just be too small and I don't have a scope.

I appreciate the info. I used proventamite on a few of my females whose skin looked bad. I let it air out extra long and so far so good. A few females that hopefully do not have the mites I moved to a different room to observe. I wont treat those unless I have to.

Whats PAM? I'm assuming your not talking about spray butter?
cheers

Provent-A-Mite

haha...dumb

Provent A Mite. P.A.M.
Todd Hughes