Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got another Gray Rat today about 3 feet long and before I put him in his new enclosure I gave him a good inspection and came to find out that he had a serious case of mites. I rubbed him down good with olive oil rinsed him off dryed him and repeated that process 2 more times. I took the snake bag outside so they couldn't reinfest. I put him in a new bag for about an hour and checked him out again and everything was fine. I was just wondering if it was ok to put him in his enclosure now or should I do anything else? I use olive oil for all cases of mites and it works like a dream. I just don't trust mite sprays they seem to harmful to me. I would rather use a natural product. He gave me a bite on the finger and my finger had olive oil on it. I know he got some in his mouth. Is that harmful? I gave some water and he took a nice drink so I'm thinking that it washed his mouth out. Please answer my questions if you can. I would like to get him in his home asap. Thanks.

I have a Black Rat Snake that has had a serious case of mites also. After treating her, I put her in her enclosure. But I used newspaper for bedding. After a few days, I noticed mites again, not as many though. So I re-treated her and changed the newspaper and cleaned the enclosure and put in new newspaper. I repeated this process until the mites were gone. It seemed to work great because there were no pieces of wood, etc. in the cage. (Which mites could easily breed in.)
Hope everything works out!

What did you treat her with?

I hope you have this snake in quarantine and as far away from the rest of your colllection as possible. Also make sure to use all the precautions you can to not transfer these mites to the rest of your colony. I've only had a small case of mites once in my collection (probably 6 or so years ago) but I took care of it immediately and haven't had a mite since then. I know your not interested in anything not natural but Provent-O-Mite is the industry standard and every collection should have a can available for precautionary sake. When used properly, you won't have any problems with poisoning your snakes. BTW, I don't see any problem with your snake having some olive oil in it's mouth, it's not poisonous or anything (I hope your using extra virgin oil in case you feel like cooking up a nice spaghetti sauce while your working on your snakes ) Good luck taking care of the mites, Scott.
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I've never used the can stuff but olive oil was recomended to me bay a zoo worker. He said that he had used it as long as he kept reptiles. It really works great. I'm not sure why but it leaves a small coat of oil on the snake for a couple of days to prevent mites from getting back on. It's always worked for me.