Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, I know the basic drill for mites. Switch to newspaper/paper towels, clean daily with mite killer, keep everything really clean. What about for the snake itself. I have heard about baby oil and mineral oil coating the snake to kill mites, but what has worked for you? Any specific products you prefer? Any help would be great!

>>Okay, I know the basic drill for mites. Switch to newspaper/paper towels, clean daily with mite killer, keep everything really clean. What about for the snake itself. I have heard about baby oil and mineral oil coating the snake to kill mites, but what has worked for you? Any specific products you prefer? Any help would be great!

Running a rescue I see mites ALOT. This is my routine.

Upon intake a snake spends 72 hours in a Provent A Mite (PAM) bag. I do a physical inspection after that time. If there are adult mites present, I will see them. I give a bath, set up a completely sterile cage (NO Bedding or substrate and just a water bowl). I treat snake for 30 days. The treatment rotates between baths, completely cleaning cage, spraying with PAM, and then post bath spraying snake with Reptile Relief. Much easier than the baby oil, much cleaner. 30 days later no mites. I prefer to use my neodeshas for housing because they are light weight and easy to see mites on. I also treat all my cages every 21 days with PAM. Or more often if I get the urge. Needless to say I do go through a large amount of PAM. With the rescue, I would say 1 out of three incoming snakes has mites with a higher incidence in Pythons. But for some reason while it is comes more often on pythons, when a boa gets it, it is VERY hard to eradicate.

Im sure others have different treatments, but this is what has worked for the rescue for many years.
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Cindy Steinle
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Having kept constrictors all my life I know all to well the problems with mite infestations. I really do appreciate the modern products such as Provent A Mite. One thing to keep aware of is many times loose substrates harbor mites and when I wnt to all nespaper the mite problems ended for the most part.

For the past six years I have used Equate Bedding Spray from Walmart for mites with great success. Same ingrediants as PAM but costs $4 a can. Equate does not have instructions for reptiles on its can but use it the same as PAM. Remove the snake and water bowl, spray substrate/paper lightly. Let dry thoroughly-20-30 minutes. Put snake/water bowl back into cage and repeat spray process in two weeks. Do not spray the snake directly. PAM/Equate will kill all stages of mites including their eggs but you must give it time to work. It is not an instant insectcide but a thorough, long term remedy. Best of luck. Bill
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