Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if anyone has a good informative site about mites I recently had to deal with mites after years of none to an army all over everything, my hognoses,redmilks,scarlet kings,florida kings, and my rosy boas, well I seem to have got rid of them except the rosyboas look and seem sluggish almost as if they have no energy, I was wondering what the effects are of mites to snakes, also to rid the mites I simply soaked the snakes for a few hours and then cleaned all cages took them to a friends house opened all the windows and turned the heat off I figured it would kill them as it's below freezing here in central NY. I haven't seen anymites since it's been about a weeka and a half. also I let the house freeze for about 4 days thanx for all your help
Wayne

geez.thats a little drastic!
i've had great sucess with provent-a-mite.its cheap,quick,& works great.if you keep bugs on purpose you will want to relocate them while you use it.it's available mail order or,most likely,from your local pet shop.there are other chemicals out there as well.provent-a-mite is just the one i used.

You are about due for round two.

Soaking the snake in water is good and gets rid of the mites on the animal. A super good cleaning will get rid of the ones in the cage. Those were all the right things to do.

If you haven't you need to throw out everything that was in the cage and what can't be thrown out needs to be cleaned very well. Hot water scrub and all that.

The problem is that every nook and cranny in the room has mite eggs in it and they hatch after about 10 days. Round Two.

Provent a mite is good. The best product is called Black Knight, you can buy it at the Bean Farm. It can be sprayed on the cage, the snake, and all around.
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Wade's Weptiles & Wodents

Ok, first: Sorry to say this but they will be back. Mite eggs, are impervious to cold. They just go into a dormant stage and wait till the temps are fine again to continue development.

Second. I don't know of a good website but here is what I know of reptile mites. There are over 250 species of mites that parasitize reptiles. The snake mite is one of the most common. Mites feed on blood. This is required so that they can transform from one stage to another. Mites tend to thrive in humid, warm condions, the reason that they tend to do so well in our reptile enclosures. In small numbers mites can cause discomfort and agitation, in Large numbers they can cause anemia, damaged scales, peri-orbital inflammation and swelling, depression and anorexia, difficult sheds, and death.

Mite eggs are impervious to most insecticides, so you have to kill the mites as they hatch. The mite life cycle is roughly 30 days. So I treat for 6 weeks, just to make sure.

The best way to avoid mites is to quarentine in a separate room, all new arrivals. Everything that comes into my house gets quarentined. I don't care WHO it comes from.