Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased a JCP at a local Reptile/Fish store. It's a female about a year old. I house her in a 20 gallon long tank with a UTH. I have a incandencent light for during the day and a red light for the night.Furnitings include reptile bark, fake plant, cork bark for her to hide under and a sculpture tree thing so she can climb. She's eaten twice for me, 2 adult mice at each feeding. This morning I noticed a little bug. I'm guessing it's the 'mite' I've read so much about that snakes get. I think I saw another one on her but couldn't get it. SO how do you get rid of them without a big mess?? Should I be worried since this is the first time I've seen them since I've had her? I bought her last week and didn't see anything on her while I looked at her at the store. She's very docile and a wonderful pet. Would a trip to the vet be in order, too?? Please Help!! Also I have corns and a milk can they get the mite too even though they all seperate enclosures?

first off get that snake as far from your other snakes as possible. and after any contact near it make sure to clean your hands well. This will prevent the spread to your other snakes. Next buy some Provent-A-Mite. Take your snake out and put it in a box temproarily, which you will throw away later, and clean the entire cage including light fixture with a 10% bleach 90% water mixture. You can try to soak the wood in the solution, but I would put it in your oven at like 350-400 and bake the hell out of it. as for the plant and anything that wouldn't survive the oven - throw it away in your outside garbage. Now put back in just your paper or what ever substrate your using and a hide box. Now spray everything down nice and good with the provent-a-mite and let it sit for a while and air out. Now put your cleaned water dish back in with some water of course and then your snake back in. Oh yea by the way clean everything around your cage too. This should take care of your mites! They should die and fall off. It doesn't sound like this is a real serious situation yet so don't waste your money at the vet. For the same price you can buy the provent-a-mite and all new cage stuff. I'll add a link to where you can get provent-a-mite from. Please feel free to email me personally if you have any problems.
Big Apple Herp (Provent-A-Mite) They ship very fast!!!

Here is a link to VPI's site where they discuss mites. They have answers to just about everything somewhere on their site.

VPI - The war against snake mites

Take your snake out of the cage and put it in a little water to soak some of the mites off. While the snake is soaking clean the cage out using watered down bleach. Use news paper as your substrate for a while so you can easily see mites, before you put your water dish back in the cage put the snake in and spray it and the cage down with Black Knight(spray your other snakes to). Black Knight is completely safe and does the job. In a week spray the cage down again just to be sure.