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It appears that a few snakes in our collection have gotten mites...we disinfected the enclosure with a household cleaning spray and threw away the paper towel and hide boxes they were using as well as rubbed down the snakes in soapy water.

Is there any other steps we should be taking???

Any suggestions???

Also, what the hell causes these little pests to be sucking blood from our snakes??? or do they just kind of happen on their own?

Thanks.
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Chris Vanderwees

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In my experience, I tried a household cleaning spray and it did not effectively erradicate them all. I used Provent-a-Mite spray. Some suggest Black Knight but its unavailable at the present moment due to legal troubles. I soaked the quarantined animals for 1-2 hours in mild soapy water while waiting for the Provent-a-mite to dry. After they're done soaking, I wiped down the snakes with Repti-Relief, which is another spray pesticide which is okay to place directly on the snake, unlike Provent-a-Mite. Others say they've used sevin dust 5% but I am not familiar with how to use it since my experience with mites was a one time isolated incident in ten years of keeping herps. I also suggest spraying your entire herp room with provent-a-mite since mites can travel pretty far and they seem to have strong chemosensory perception to detect the smell of snakes. Also, keep in mind that the mite eggs are microscopic, as well as the first stage of their life cycle. Heck, I doubt you can even see the juveniles which are said to be little white flecks. I've only seen adult mites. GOOD LUCK and KILL EM ALL!

Best wishes,
Jason

Be very careful with Proven-a-mite, certain individual snakes can have a bad reaction to this spray, and it can cause permanent neurological damage ... it happened to two of mine. I used the product as directed and got a reaction from 2 snakes, while the other 12 or so whose cages I treated were fine. You might want to try the Zap strips, they're the old No-Pest Strips and you can get them from some of the suppliers on the site.

Who on this site sells those strips ?
I cant find them locally ??????????
They do werk goooood !