Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Several months ago, a good friend took a call for me from a woman who wanted to surrender her blue tongue skink. I passed the call to my friend because she was looking for one for the county supported education program that she was managing. Well, right around Christmas or so, the county decided to go all indigenous, so she asked me to take the skink. I said yes, of course, and never gave health a second thought because I know this person and she is very phobic about mites, especially snake mites because they house many snakes at their facility. All has been well and the skink has been eating well and just beautiful until a few days ago.

When I looked in on the skink this morning, the reason for her recent lethargy became quite obvious. She was COATED in snake mites! So I immediately went to work on her, her enclosure and started checking all of the vivs around her. ALL had mites! So I pulled all substrate and tossed it, sprayed, cleaned and I sprayed and I bathed, and I oiled, and I continue to bake and microwave rocks, hides, cement stones, etc. The infestation reached all 5 vivs around that skink, and one viv across the room, but I am thankful and hopeful that it does not appear to have invaded the chucks, collareds, blue spinys, or my little alligator lizard. Still, I have a long few weeks of constant vigilance and treatment to get through before I can rest!

So, please QUARANTINE everything living that comes into your home! Do not assume that if you know the source, you are safe! I never saw a mite on that skink before this morning, and look how fast the little buggers spread!

Donna, if the mites are that bad and those other five vivs have them then PLEASE just assume the others have them as well and treat them the same. These suckers breed outside the tanks as well and travel good distance at night.

Also the way they travel best is on the KEEPER sorry to say.
This is why I stopped taking in rescues so often, after I got nailed with snake mites few seasons ago. They can be terrible and do much damage.

Sorry this happened, It was an exhausting and sad time when I went through it. And I woudl advice you NOT TO BRING IN ANY NEW animals or LET ANY GO OUT for awhile.
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PHEve / Eve

I am rimming all of the tanks with Vaseline and cleaning all, and I am spraying my furniture. Fortunately, I do not have carpet, so vacuuming and spraying the floors should at least slow them down!

I'm always dreading that my reptiles will get mites! Recently, I caught a subspecies of southern alligator lizard (a California alligator lizard) and brought it home. At first it was all fine, he was eating a ton, but then one day he stuck out his head from his hide and notice something on his neck. At first I thought it was his scales, but I looked closer and realized they were ticks. I went ahead and pulled the ones I can out with a pair of tweezers, but the others that I could see are still fairly too small to be pulled (I mean these things are tiny), so I didn't want to pick him up risking him biting me trying to pull out tiny ticks smaller than pin head crickets. That's the only way I could do it. There doesn't appear to me many of them, but I'm still a little concern for the little guy. After I pulled them off I drown them in some cooking oil, so they can't spread to my other reptiles. It's funny because about a week earlier we went hiking in the same place look for herps, and I came home and went to sleep and woke up the next morning, took off my shirt in the bathroom and started scratching the side of my body. I felt something on the side of my body, so I look in the mirror, but I didn't know what it was because it was tiny and it was at a weird angle. I thought at first it was some kind of scab, but it wouldn't come off when I pulled on it. So I took a closer look, but still couldn't see very well because of the weird angle, but then I realized from reading from the guide I picked up that there were ticks in the area so people should be aware. Anyway, I ended up trying to pull it out after realizing it was actually a tick. It was so darn hard to pull off for some reason! It gave me a good scare because I didn't want to get lyme disease and the darn thing didn't come off that easily! I pull it out as hard as I can, but only its body came off, the head was still attached to the side of my body, so I went in the other room to grab a pair of tweezers, and surely, but slowly, I manage to pull off the head. It gave me a good scare because I've never been infested with a tick before!

During the spring ticks can be very common in my area. We always get them on us after walking the dogs or hiking. This is especially true after some rain. They're disgusting.

If you have dogs, you should treat them with the preventative that you deposit on their skin on their neck. This stuff really saves us from tick infestation in the spring.

I live in fear of snake mites! So far, I've never had any. I have a reptile room with 20 animals being about half snakes and half lizards. I guess I've been lucky so far.