Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have always prided myself on the fact that I never had a mite problem in my years of keeping reptiles. (just got back into it a few months ago after a 5 year hiatus. I have kept various animals, including reptiles, since I was maybe around 10) I have actually boasted about it. Well, I wake up this morning to find my son's kingsnake soaking in the water dish, and after close examination, sure enough, I found the buggers crawling in the cage. So much for any bragging rights now. lol. Anyways, I have read several posts about how to get rid of them, and I will be changing the substrate today along with trying some of the other methods.

My real question I guess would be where do the little pests come from? I don't have any items in the setup that are brought in from outside. I do however have a former workglove that the snake has become fond of, though I believe it to be clean. Also, I had recently changed the substrate of the neighboring tarantula to peat moss. I was told that a fresh bag of peat moss was supposed to be sterile, so I should not have to worry about mites from there. I have checked the spider's cage, and cannot see anything in there, so I am pretty confident that they did not come from there. Also, all of the mice come from the pet store, and although I usually go with frozen, I do allow the snake to exercise his natural killer instincts with a live mouse when available.

I guess what I am asking is this; where would the mites come from? Could they come from the live mice from the store, (if so I will be notifying the store so that they can check their stock and erraticate any problems there) is the peat moss theory false, that mites are present even in a freshly opened bag?

I appreciate any insight anyone might have. In the meantime, I guess I will be playing exterminator for the day.

Thanks,
Tony

Your pet store probably keeps reptiles also. The little demons came in on the live mice you've been feeding.
Theres a good thred on the General Discussion Forum on products to knock them out.
Paul

Sooner or later it happens to most of us. I kept snakes for almost 10 years before mites made it into my collection. It was shortly after getting into ball pythons. The source was a pet store find. I visually checked it, let it slide through my hands, no mites. They were under the scales along with mite eggs. I quarantined the snake but carelessly put the box that was used to transport the snake on the top shelf of my rack.
They spread quickly but can be contained and eradicated in a safe manner.
Also, NO, they did not come from the live mice. That's a different type of mite.
I have had a snake come out of cooling with mites. The source was garden supplies. I cool in the garage and there were open bags of peat moss, bark, etc. right next to my cooling area. The snake was clean before going into cooling, no mites in the collection at that time. I brought him out of cooling and immediately found the mites. The only possible source was the peat moss and bark.

So the peat moss, you blame that? I have a bag in the spare bedroom where the snake and spider are, and like I mentioned, the spider is currently using peat moss. When I had asked serveral people on the arachnid forum, they told me that I should not have any worries about the peat moss and mites. Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

By the way, I am in process now of cleaning the cage and all decorations. The snake seems much happier already than he did first thing this morning when I picked him up. He was rubbing and twisting his whole body rapidly through my fingers, and now he's back to his calm, curious, inquisitive self. He may not be to happy with me though for being on newspaper for a couple days, as he spent alot of his time "underground", but if it gets rid of these damn things, I'm all for it. I also let the pet store owner know, so she is aware. Don't you hate it when you make a comment such as, "I am so glad that I have never had to deal with mites" only to be eating those words for lunch? lol.

I can't say if it was the peat moss or the bark, etc. but the snake was clean before going into cooling and came out with mites. Those bags were the only possible source. A friend decided to save a few cents and started buying small bark in bulk from a local pet store. Within the first week he had mites in his collection.

I did notice that you said you used bark. I previously used bark as my main substrate years ago, but I quit after hearing alot of horror stories about bark containing mites. I have since used several other forms of substrate, my new choice being Desert Snow, which is a hardwood pulp, makes for very easy spot cleaning, as it pure white. (Also looks pretty cool under a black light, which I use at nightime to simulate moonglow) It was also very helpful in seeing the mites yesterday morning. Nothing sticks out more than little black moving specks crawling across a white background. BTW, I wanted to thank you for the correction of my spelling eradicate (erraticate. brain is usually sending the right signals, they just don't always make it all the way to the keyboard).

I was leaning towards the mice being to blame, I just was wanting some back-up for my suspicion before talking with the pet store owner.

Thanks again

Mice.
Todd Hughes