Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i brought a striped cali king home and put him in quarantine and that very night he was thrashing and rubbing against the walls so i picked him up and poor guy was covered in mites. i soaked him and drowned so many. in a rush i went to wal mart and picked up equate bedding spray. when i got home i had to make the decision to use the spray and take a risk with the snake or place an order for provent a mite. the snake was so miserable i decided to use the equate. and place an order for provent a mite. it has been one week and he seems to be mite free and healthy and alert. Did i make a bad decision? my decision had nothing to do with the price as i would spend anything to keep my animal healthy. the equate was used in an emergency with the largest single case of mite infestation ive seen. i know keep a can of provent a mite at all times. If this stuff is the safest and most effective spray for mites why is it not stocked in more pet stores?

I recently had a mite problem with my ball python. I was told that the stuff from Walmart was basically the same as Provent-A-Mite but I loathe going to Walmart so I just ordered PAM online from LLL Reptile. Since I'm in California I had it within 2 days. By the time I got it though all the mites had disappeared! I gave my python a bath once, sometimes twice a day and I wiped down the cage with disinfectants. I also took everything out and put paper towels down as substrate and put a minimal of stuff back in the cage. It's been 2 weeks and I've been mite free so far. But I'm glad I have the PAM on hand in case the little buggers come back. I don't know why no pet stores carry PAM, someone told me it was illegal in CA but that doesn't make sense because LLL Reptile is located in CA and they sell it. Maybe it's expensive to stock and most pet stores just don't sell enough of it to keep in stock...

monty it is very interesting you mention your incident because i have had a very similar phenomenon happen to a reptile. i come home he has mites. i bathe him and scrub his tank and mites never appeared on him again.

I have used Equate for many years with a large collection with no ill effects what so ever. Equate is exactly the same as PAM but 1/4 the cost minus instructions on the can for reptiles. As long as you never spray the reptile directly and give adrquate drying time, Equate works just the same. Bill
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...three years ago it was just another snake cult...
The Retic is King.
Anacondas-the other Dark Side.
Afrocks-the dark side of the Dark Side.

Glad it worked out. Couple of things just for FYI...

1. I agree with the others, Equate has the same active ingredient. I would guess that it is not more concentrated either.

2. Cal kings (getula in general) tend to not have adverse effects from proper dosing of the mite spray, but for many montane kingsnake species, that isn't always the case. For those species, it is best to spray just outside the cage rather than in it, and keep washing snake and cage interior.

3. You can stop the spread of mites from one cage to another by spraying the outside bottom perimeter of the cage, not having to spray the cage itself. Works very well and for me has been safe for even the more sensitive snakes.

4. Mites can come back in about 2 weeks if the eggs are not killed. I treated a cage interior with PAM (mites on a new spotted python). Mites were gone. About 2 weeks later, little mites were back. The eggs were probably outside the cage. I sprayed outside the cage (and inside again) and the mites never came back.
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Mark

I certainly believe there is indeed a correlation whith getula and the Provent-A-Mite. I have a friend that used some on some very high-end hatchling Outer Banks kings(sticticeps), and they had a VERY BAD reaction to it. They were adversely affected neurologically, and where posturing in very abnormal ways.

Luckily, with some TLC, I was able to nurse them back to normal after about a good week or so, and they are now thriving beyond belief. One of the tiny 9 gram '08 females is now a staggering 400 grams!

Man!, am I happy they pulled through that almost deadly disaster!

That stuff is definitely "hit-or-miss" on certain types of snakes, and their size obviously would have a lot to do with how they would react to it. I would NEVER! use it on very small, young stuff, as there are tons of other safer ways to go about mite eradication. luckily, or better said..with being real careful about all the countless snakes I've had in past decades, I haven't had ANY mites whatsoever since the early 70's!, and hope to keep it that way too..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com