Reptile & Amphibian Forums

have a baby boa constrictor red tail. i have been worried because she haven't ate in two weeks. and she regurgiated her food. well i was looking at her today in the cage and saw a few red dots walking across her body. those are mite. damn. this is probably the cause to her being anemic. well i took her out soaked her in warm water for an hour. and then took all the dirftwood and baked them in the oven for 1 hour.at 250 degrees. and clean her enclosure with bleach and water. i have a pothos plant in the cage. i was wondering if the mites can also be aroiund in there too. is there any other things i can do to prevent or get rid of mites please help.

you might want to try replacing ALL the substrate and spraying everything with a good mite removal product (black knight)
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 normal ball python (felix)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

"There are six genes which determine the amount of melanism present in a person's skink"-meretseger

I use a few different methods of killing mites. Recentally I've used Provent-A-Mite, very effective. As far as I can tell, it kills all mites in one shot. Works so well that it scares me, I don't use it on my breeding animals. Make sure you have plenty of ventilation. Product comes with usage info.
What works for me is pest strips and pour-on ivermectin. Both work very well together but DO NOT over use them. Pour-On Ivermec is expensive and requires a 1ml to 1000ml part dilution. To get more info on this read "The Boa Manual" by AVS. After a soak in water(to drown some mites) wipe the snake off with paper towel(will have mites all over it). Then spray the snake completely with the solution, avoid the eyes, but NOT- the creases of the mouth, the mental(chin fold), and the vent flap. Let dry on snake. Repeat every 10 days for a month. You may be able to get a vet to make up this spray.
Next the pest strip. A full sized pest strip is made for a 900 sq ft room- if you put a full sized strip in a snakes cage it will kill it. Putting a 1 cm piece of pest strip in a film canister with several holes poked in it is usually sufficent. Let it sit in the enclosure for 1 day then take it out. Repeat every other day for a month.
This has worked well for me with new snakes and as a preventitive for my adult breeders. But I can not overestimate the dangers of overly aggressive usage of these products, particularly the pest stripes.
Also, ditch the pothos plant- mites can lay eggs in the soil. Use newspaper as a substrate and bleach any other cage furniture in a 5% solution.
Plenty of other stuff to say on mites but others will have treatment advice. Good luck.
Later-
Matt Schubarth
Pet Nebula
2100 Stephens #116
Missoula, Montana 59801
406 541 9929

well i broke down today and couldn't help myself. well after i decided to et her soak for 3 hours i went out and bought her her first live mice. i usually feed thawed. well i put everything back together and fed her in her enclosure first time doing so as i'm worry for her health i want her to at least eat something. well she was reluctant at first to eat it but after 20 minutes of staring she came after it. constricted it and ate it in 5 minutes. now she's hiding away and digesting. good sign so far. well i'm gonna get some provent a mite this week and treat it again. what should i do in prcaution when using this spray?

Read the label. It will have precausions on it. Need to use in well ventalated area. I took my tank outside to treat it. I used it for my jungle carpet python when she had mites. I took her entire cage apart. Threw out her substrate and the cork bark (I think I got the mites for the cork bark). I've heard you can bake it to kill mites on it. But it had such a horrible smell in the oven I just took the loss and threw it away. I washed her whole tank outside then sprayed the Prevent-o-mite in it. I have heard if you have a glass enclosure it's easier to get rid of mites then a wooden enclosure. I don't think you have to take apart the entire enclosure to use Prevent o mite, but this is what I did. When I put her cage back together I just used newspaper till after her next shed cycle to be sure there were no more mites.

While I was cleaning out her cage I soaked my jcp in veggie oil. Water will not get between the scales where the mites are to drown them. The oil worked great. Then I rinsed her off and picked off every mite I could find. Esp look up under the chin and around the head and eyes well.

I have not see any mites since and its been a couple of months. Also if you have other snakes or reptiles, it's best to isolate the one that has mites. I moved my jcp to a different room. Good Luck :0)

No need to remove this and that, dry this and that, air out this and that, clean this and that... just spray and that's it!
Best and easiest product I have ever used.. no need to go through the rest!
Joe
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

I just had a minor outbreak of mites myself... The museum I work at has a bunch of wc water snakes (that are amazingly tame, to my suprise!)they came down with mites, and then i found some on my corn snake about a week later. I have ALWAYS used Provent-a-mite, but quite frankly it scares the tar out of me. I'm obsessively worried when I have to use it, and always let the treated cage dry for 48 hours before I dare put my animals back in... then i compulsively check to make sure they are not suffering ill effects for days afterwards. Granted, I'm sure all the precautions on my part are unnecessary, but I just can't bring myself to trust the evil stuff. It does kill the mites, but if Black night works better, dang, I better get some of that!! By any chance do you know the active ingredient in the stuff? To bad there's not an organic way to get rid of mites! Good luck treating you boa!
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1.1 argentine b/w tegus
1.0 anery corn
0.1 western hog
0.1 leopard gecko
1.1 blue headed tree agama
0.0.1 ball python
0.0.1 western fox
And always looking for more!!

Yes sir!
I got tired of cleaning and emptying the enclosures, then spraying, then allowing to dry and air out before putting back..

I don't know about you but i'm paranoid to remove animals from enclosures with mites.. why? because if ONLY ONE falls off of him and lands on the floor or elsewhere, he can eventually repopualte a whole army of them to come back and feast on my whole collection! Paranoid? maybe.. safe? gauranteed. lol

The BIG BREEDERS I bought this from told me they use it preventively and for major treatment with EVERYthing that enters or leaves there facility, and i've made this common practice as well.
They told me they recommend removing water bowl, obviously, but have even sprayed the enclosures and directly over the snakes with the water bowl inside on occasion.

I've used this for years after giving up on Provent-a-mite .. and it has proved to be the best by far to me..

best part is... i've found that I don't even have to spray it NEAR the animal.. lol

Only time I EVER saw a problem was when continuously spraying a neonate in a small unventilated enclosure (5 times a day). He showed signs of neurological problems the next day, which cleared and never returned. He was and still is fine.

First time I used it in my NYC apartment years ago, I used it in a closed her room, and the next day, in the kitchen on the opposite side of the apartment, dead cockroaches had come ut from behind the kitchen cabinets and fridge! dead in the middle of the kitchen floor! and I didn't even know I had any - never saw them!

take care - Joe
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

I strongly second what Joe said. I recently had a small mite outbreak and used Black Knight as my treatment. Couldn't have been easier...

I keep my boa in a small closet. I took my snake out of its cage for a good soak in another room. Fogged the cage with good shot of BK, then fogged the rest of the closet as well. I then closed the closet door and let the BK do its work for a good hour. I then aired out the closet, returned my boa to its cage, gave another small shot of BK to the cage w/ my boa in it, and that was it. Haven't seen a mite since...
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David - Houston, TX
Young Red Tail Boa
Purchased 11/16/03
www.geocities.com/davidag02