Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I work at a pet store, and they had me take our baby redtail boas in to the vet (they had mites, i was getting ready to do the old oil treatment, but they wanted a vet's opinion), and she said DO NOT do the oil treatment, but instead to get some provent-a-mite. Wasn't it taken off the market a few years ago becuase of health problems? am I wrong? and I right? please help!
thanks!
-katie

I think that the product you were thinking about was called Black Knight. I know that that was taken off the market just recently, although i am not sure why.

I have had great sucess with proventamite. I would not however, spray it directly on the animals. Especially baby snakes. If you spray it on the substrate and the enclosure it should do the trick.

Did the vet say why you shoudlnt use the oil treatment? Olive oil works great for suffocating the mites. As does soapy water baths. What i did with my BTS was: when i realised that he had mites, i immedieatly soaked him in a soapy water bath. (make sure that the amimal you are soaking is properly hydrated BEFORE you do this, so they dont drink the water)) Using a soapy water bath will make it so the mites arent 'water tight'. Alot of times, mites will survive normal soaks because they form air bubbles around them. Dish soap will prevent this.

Next, what i did was take him from the bath, dry him, and rub snake oil on him. Snake oil consists of all natural oils such as sunflower and tea tree oil. It serves to soothe the skin, as well as suffocate the remaining mites. Olive oil will serve this purpose just fine if snaike oil is not readily available.

Then, i would take my freshly oiled albeit angry skink and place him in a hospital tank. this tank was a 10g with a uth, proper lighting, and paper towel as a substrate and disposibal hides and water dish. This tank was rotated daily for one week. The rotation consisted of bleaching out with 10:1 water to bleach solution, a THOROUGH rinsing, replacing the towels and placing the towels and furniature into a plastic bag which was then sprayed with provent a mite and then tied and thrown away. This was done daily.

This was a rather extreme and agressive mite treatment, but with having all the animals that i do, i believe it was needed. When i put griff back in his home tank, i had changed out all of his bedidng and thrown out his wooden fixtures. I then (before placing the skink back into his tank) sprayed the entire enclosure (minus the water and food bowls, obviously) with provent a mite. I do that once a month now, just to be on the safe side.

The only problem i had was with the feeder insects. Proventamite is so strong that it will kill any feeder insects that are placed into the tank for a month. Griff ate a few of these, and then acted alittle weird, but he is ok.

i would try this. follow the directions on the can, and you should be fine....good luck to you and the babies

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"Brains for dinner, brains for lunch. Brains for breakfast, brains for brunch. Brains for every single meal; why can't we have some GUTS?"-Misfits

1.0 ball python- Azazel
1.0 columbian boa- Brooklyn
1.0 red blood python-Hiss
1.0 peach phase thayeri-Sancho
0.1 creamsicle corn- Pandora
0.1 partial stripe ghost corn- Raven
1.0 Sunglow motley corn-Ernie
1.1 hognose- Pricilla and Odd
0.1 russian tortoise- Manja
0.2 leos- Boji and Kodama
0.1 beardie- Indie
1.0 BTS- Griffon
0.1 Iggy- Sunny
0.0.1 Red american toadlet
0.0.1 gray tree frog toadlet
4.3 bettas
0.1 pacific parrolet- Mishka
1.1 cats- Cairo and Oberon
2.4 ratties Rizzo, Bree, Blitzkreig, kaos, adelle, and shiloh

>>I work at a pet store, and they had me take our baby redtail boas in to the vet (they had mites, i was getting ready to do the old oil treatment, but they wanted a vet's opinion), and she said DO NOT do the oil treatment, but instead to get some provent-a-mite. Wasn't it taken off the market a few years ago becuase of health problems? am I wrong? and I right? please help!
>>thanks!
>>-katie

I love Provent a Mite but you CAN NOT use it on the animal. Not that you need to . I find that using it as directed is highly effective. I spray newspaper outside and stack it, bring it in and use it for enclosures and that is all it takes.
Using Mineral oils (baby) on a snake can lead to a massive lost of scale covers. I have seen snakes shed their scales in flakes all over when they had been coated in mineral oil for mites. I haven't seen a bad reaction to a vegetable oil.
Black Knight was pulled off the market. Don't know if Provent a Mite ever was, but it is back now.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

I was going to use Pam (spray it on a towel and wipe down the snakes). The full thing that i was going to to was to take the snakes out of the cage and soak them. while they're soaking completely clean out the cage (which isn't too hard becuase i have them on paper towels in the back)(only hot water), then dry the enclosure, dry off the snakes, oil them, and put them back. I've had pretty good luck with this meathod, and i personally like it becuase i can trust the people on my day off to do it as it is pretty "idiot-proof", that's why i'm kinda reluctant to use something which has a risk of fumes, or can't get on the snake, or whatnot. With the use of oil, if they accidentaly do it wrong (say, spray the cage down with it lol), it won't kill anything. I was questioning my vet's opinion (not my personal one) because she's pulled stuff like diagnosing all my reptiles with vit. A deficiancy without a blood test, and when they were showing no symptoms, she wanted them really supplimented daily (needless to say i said i would, but didn't, i don't want to deal with vit. A toxosis) as it is they do get supliment on their food between 1-2 times per week, plus all feeder insects are gut-loaded on a really good salad (the same mix i feed to the iggies... no lettuce, just the good kind of greens and such)
sorry this is so long, but thanks for reading!
-katie

I guess if you don't mind all the work and beating your head against those mites for months that is okay. But seriously, Provent a Mite. Treat newspaper outside. Spray a pile of them. Set those papers aside and change all the enclosures with them. Leave it for a couple weeks to a month. Change it with it a second time if you are paranoid. No more mites. No stressing snakes, no oiling, no scrubbing out tubs, no nothing.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

I guess i've had good luck with the meathod then, cause i've never had an infestation longer than a week using my method. And again, for use at work, i need something that is near IMPOSSIBLE to kill the snakes with. To each their own. I'd think about using your meathod at home (i may try it now), but not with the idiots i work with; trust me lol! But seriously, thanks all of you who responded, it really helped, i was concerned as i had heard bad rumers about the product, but you have shown me that it is fine if used PROPERLY, and thanks.
katie