Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First, let me thank everyone for the wealth of knowledge...

I took one of my carpets to the vet, ... we did a fecal, and saw mouse mites in the digestive tract. They varied in their stages of development, but survived through her system. And I was told that they would continue to develop after defication, My colony shows no signs of mites, I even checked under their scales. My vet told me the mouse mites are different from the well visible mites that plague herps. Only visible under a microscope, and shouldn't bother my snakes
This still worries me though... Don't get me wrong, I feed frozen almost exclusively, but have a few that will only eat live, I had a surplus of live mice that I wanted to be rid of, so I fed them to anyone that would eat, ... everyone that ate one of the live mice, went through the extensive soaking and then started their shed phase.

Anyone know anything I can/should do?

My temps were a little bit high since I just recently changed my substrate from from cypress mulch to paper.
Humidity looks ok, it's around 60%
During the change I tossed all of their wooden hide boxes, I'm opting for Plastic..
As well I placed the water bowls near the incandescent heat lamp... so I understand that they could have been using the waterbowl as a hide, and to thermoregulate. But me thinks that the live mice sparked this.. as those in my colony that did not eat the live mouse, have shown no signs of extensive soaking...

PLEASE HELP
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Best Regards,
Cori
www.snakeroom.net

I guess I have 2 points.

Feeding only fresh killed and stunned. we breed feeders.
And are carpets don't go in the water.

The couple that do go in the water. One is a WC female
who always craps in her hide, then moves to the water for a hide.
and a WC male that likes the water around shed time.

Good tips from all over, great guys around here.

MArdy

mouse mites aree in mice/rats. And did he say it would be anything to be concerned about

No, he sure didn't say how common or uncommon they are...
At this point he instructed me to monitor them.. I really would like to be more proactive though... it's so strange that everyone of my snakes that ate a mouse from that bunch, have all did the same thing, soak in the water bowl non-stop, and then enter the blue phase, ... it concerns me because they were soaking in the water bowls long before they entered blue,
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Best Regards,
Cori
www.snakeroom.net