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What is the best way to get rid of mites. I have a minor case of mites on my newly acquired burmese and they sprayed Reptile Relief on her before i broght her home yesterday but still finding a few of them. thanks for any info.

There are many ideas of what is the "best way" to get rid of mites. Many say the pro products "Pro-vent-a-mite" is the current best method, but I personally have never used it. However, Rob Carmichael reccomends it, and I trust his advise. I used Black Knight one time only in an emergency case situation because the place didn't have provent-a-mite, but I am usually very wary of any highly toxic poisons and don't use any if I have a choice.

As far as Sevin dust, I have used that since the mid-seventies with fantastic results. It's very mild in terms of being "poisonous" and is a dehydrating agent that dries the mites (or other pests) to death instead of literally "poisoning" them. So I feel it is a lot safer to use than other highly toxic compounds. I have never had any ill side effects with it in nearly 30 years. Of course, I really haven't had any serious mite problems since the 80's, but I have helped friends and fellow herpers out a lot over the last decade by erradicating their mites for them using Sevin dust. But how you use it is very important. You can't just sprinkle it around and expect it to work. The pest has to come into contact with it. What I do is rub it into the snake's scales all over their body (including around their eyes, but not in their mouth) by filling my hand with the powder and running the snake through it, back and forth until it's covered. Then I place the snake in a pristinely clean sweater box (if the snake is small enough) that has sevin dust spinkled under some newspaper to cover any retreat should any living mite get off the snake and attempt to hide under the bedding. Then, I have the sweater box on an isolated spot, like a table, on more newspaper, with a heavy ring of sevin dust circling the sweater box. Again, to prevent any escape. Usually this initial treatment will erradicate the little devils, but I always give the treatment a week or so, repeating the treatment every 2 or 3 days to ensure that the dust is fresh and viable. Make sure that you wash the lid as well as the bottom of the sweater box when repeating the sevin application!! Mites often hide in recesses of the sweater box lids!

If you have contaminated caging, I would sufggest to first take it outside and try to wash out as many mites as possible with a hard water blast. Then dry it and apply sevin dust to every crack and crevice, then ring the cage with sevin. If you had a really bad mite infestation you can bet that they are around the room/s in the carpet and whatnot. In this case you sprinkle sevin over the entire floor surface and along the wall cracks. Leave this for a week or so, then vaccum. After all this is done, if you want to decrease your chances of a repeat infestation, elevate your cages off the floors on narrow blocks or posts and ring these posts with sevin. It makes it nearly impossible for any remaining mites in the room to get back to their host and they die in a few weeks without food and moisture.

I think that about covers what has worked best for me in the past. I hope it helps you. (Tip: buy the large BAG of sevin dust. It's TWICE the volume, and still about 5 bucks)

>>What is the best way to get rid of mites. I have a minor case of mites on my newly acquired burmese and they sprayed Reptile Relief on her before i broght her home yesterday but still finding a few of them. thanks for any info.
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