Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Heres the situation. Doing normal herp room checks and found 95% (around 300 snakes) of collection to have a serious mite infestation. My question to all of you is not how to get rid of them, thats not the problem. My concern is how they got here. Nothing new has came into my collection in over three months, and that stuff is still in the quarantine room. I follow strict quarantine procedures (last touched, no tools leave room, shower after handling/feeding/cleaning/etc... and what not.) The only thing that has changed is my rodent supplier. Last week I received a huge shipment of rats and mice. They were all still frozen when they arrived. All rodent eaters have mites now. The 5% with no mites are the rabbit eaters. Is it remotely possible that the mites came on the frozen rodents. I was pretty sure freezing killed off the mites and eggs. If I had a snake with them before, I'm sure I would have seen it before It got this bad. Any ideas?

It does take a while for any infestation to become really bad. Especially for some 250 animals. I'd estimate this has been going on for some time (several lifecycles of the parasite anyhow- I think one cycle being 22 days; temp. dependent) This whole process takes much longer with happy healthy animals. Considering your facility sounds pretty professional, I don't think husbandry is much of a problem. Still, do a few checks. Is your herp room too dry? Low humidity = hypohydration = subpar but normal looking health = slower immune system. Thus, perhaps a possible explaination of the "fast" overtaking of the snake mite. Still though, several generations would be needed, otherwise with all those mites on a few rodents, you would have noticed it.

While I'm pretty sure frozen food will have killed any mite life stage, I don't know this as fact. Take some mites, put them in your freezer and see if they revive after a few days. You can also ask your supplier. Let them know your not accusing them, but just exploring some possibilites. Does your supplier keep snakes? Have they ever had a mite problem?

The link to infected snakes being rat feeders might be a simple as stat's (you have more rat feeders), sharing of tongs and food among similiar snakes, cage position ect.

If I had to critique your setup/system from the small description I've seen, it would be that you have an excellent facility, a good quarantine, but you might be lacking on observation. This can be a daunting task with so many animals, and missing a subclinically infested snake can be a simple mistake. Obviously something was missed; I can't really pinpoint it for you. Additionally the fact that such a massive infestation (you mentioned the snakes were heavily infested) wasn't found until this extent was reached, seems to be a breach in routine examinations. I know even with my own smaller collection, if time is limited, I feed, water, and do a quick look on the animal but that's it. If this happens too often, then of course something like the build up of mites can be missed. So perhaps my best suggestion is to re-evaluate your workload and perhaps find a helper.

I hope this helps, if you have any additional questions, feel free to ask. Perhaps also add a few pic's , it sounds like you have an impressive collection!

Ian

from experience with reptiles i've found out that even with healthy animals mites can come around with no help. i've noticed that some animals get them far more easily than others also. perhaps with a 3 month situation, it is possible that the mites stayed as eggs until some certain conditions changed and started hatching again? if you have a large collection with cages all linked to one another it is possible that they spread. but then at the same rate you pose a good question as far as the rabbit eaters not having mites. i just recently(a couple months ago) got a ratsnake. no mites, no problems..about a month later i had lots of mites on him...like i was saying, i've seen that some reptiles seem to never get a mite, while others get them very easily..good luck to you