Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had an aweful time keeping mites off of my red tails! I've been battleing them about every month or two for the past 8 to 9 months! They seem to go away for 6 weeks and come back! Everytime we have an outbreak, we soak all the red tails in very warm water, rinse them in the tub, spray them with mite-off, take all bedding and wooden things out of their cages, disinfect with 409 or Bleach and water solution, replace bedding with papertowels... We have no idea where the mites are coming from. Only our red tails get them, none of our other snakes have ever had mites. At first, we thought the mites were in the Aspen bedding, so we discontinued using Aspen. Went to coconut bark, still getting mites. The only thing I can think of is sometimes we spot clean their cages and miss some feces, it may sit there for a week or two before we see it and clean it... can this cause mites? I would love to go back to using Aspen, we just wanted to make sure that wasn't the cause.

Thanks for your suggestions!
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Kristina

0.1 normal Kenyan sand boa
1.2 anery Kenyan
1.0 albino Kenyan
0.1 albino paradox Kenyan
0.1 snow Kenyan
0.2 normal red tail
1.1 salmon red tail
1.0 anery red tail
0.1 albino red tail
0.1 bearded dragon
0.1 bunny
1.0 cat

Works like a charm. Use it when changing your bedding and follow the directions.

Should one use this product even thou they are 100% mite free? Kinda like to prevent them. I know 90% of the time they came from other snakes but do they come from outside?

I know you can them from feeding live food. The mites can use the rodents as an intermediate host. I guess its possible to get them in bedding. I had a redtail years ago infested with mites. i got the provent-a-mite and have never had another mite since. I use it whenever a new snake comes into the house and I spray new bedding.....Hope this helps...Joe

We got a snake that was infested with mites but
within a week of using bk2 (bean farm has it I know
there is others that sell it too)we got rid of her
mites and we have never had another mite since. We
also use aspen and still no mites. This stuff isnt
the cheapest but it does work. Hope this helped

and get some repel in the orange can. Its in the camping section. It has the same specs as prevent a mite and 15 dollars cheaper.

Hey I used to have the same problem until I learned about the cheapest way to effectively treat mites and keep them away for good.

Go to the pharmacy section in walmart and look for EQUATE Bedding Spray. It costs about 3.50 a can and 1 can can treat a collection of 20 to 30 boas. This lice bedding spray has the exact same active ingredient (Permethrin) as provent a mite and bk mite spray and is ridiculously cheap. I promise you this is a surefire way to kill all the mites on your snakes today.

So remove all snakes and spray their bedding of any kind newspaper aspen you name it. Let it dry. Put the snakes back in dont worry about picking any mites off them. As soon as they move around a bit the permethrin will kill all the mites within a few hours.

Remember the life cycle for snake mites is 30 days so you will need to re apply the spray every thirty days for a month or two to make sure all the eggs that hatch after 30 days DIE!!! NO MORE MITES GUARANTEED!