Reptile & Amphibian Forums

?

from dirty cages at the store,,,wholesalers,etc,,,,,,,,,,

.......or from them waling from cage to cage even at the same places........

.........I baby sat snakes once or twice years ago.......

mites.....all over the room then......

they suck.........

As jyohe said - usually from another snake. But he was really answering the question, “WHERE did the mites come from that I now see on my snakes.”

Your question, “HOW do snakes get mites?” can be answered a different way. They got them because of something their keeper did – or did not do. If a collection is extremely stable with no new snakes coming in, then it is almost certain that it will remain free of snake mites. However, if one does bring in new snakes without following a good quarantine protocol, then sooner or later, one’s collection will pay the price. And just because we get that new animal from our best buddy or from Big Name Breeder, Inc., rather than from Mites R Us Reptiles, doesn’t mean we can ignore the good husbandry basics. I suppose it is possible for you to pick up mites on your clothing and bring them back to your collection if you hang around Mites R Us Reptiles enough. But in that scenario, you’d probably be buying snakes from them, anyway, so how would you ever know for sure?

Many people now treat all new acquisitions prophylactically with something like Provent-a-mite. So far, I’ve resisted doing that and rely on observation during the quarantine period.

One other thing. Not all mites found in snake cages are snake mites, thus are probably not harmful to the snake. But I prefer to kill ‘em, anyway. Bugs are for the outdoors.

-Joan

That havent been either quarantined or from lack of better husbandry skills.There is one other way that a snake in a stable collection can/will get mites,If you feed mice/rats from a petstore that has mite infested snakes.They will use the mice/rats as hosts (not to suck the blood out of but for afree ride) until they can get the opportunity to get within the enclosure of the snake.Once on the host they cant be seen,so if by chance you get a mouse/rat with mites as hosts then your collection will wind up with them as well.Since provent and black knight are dangerous to furry fuzzy critters then you cant spray them down to get rid of them.You have to wait until the snake is infested before you realize that you have them.Believe me it sucks to have to find out that way which is why now i raise my own.Very seldom do i have to get feeders.Either way i keep a can of provent just in case. Regards Bill McLeod

-----
RDR FORUM

The place where you can say whatever you want