Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just noticed that my new baby cornsnake has mites, and hes in shed. What should i do? They like to hang out on his head, and r kinda brownish and oval shaped and about the size of the ball in a ball point pen. What should i do, hes my first corn and a little baby, i don't want my first corn to die. Please any help would be appreciated. thanks in advance.

you're going to want to act quickly, mites can devistate a reptile collection. Go to your pet store and see if they have something called "provent-a-mite". it's in a black and white spray can. a lot of pet stores around me don't carry it though, so you may have to find it online (maybe big apple or LLL reptiles)or i know there's usually an add for it in Reptiles magazine. follow the directions on the can... it's pretty simple... basically just spray the substrate but make sure you take out the water bowland snake. also, make sure that if you have any other reptiles to do it to their tanks too... mites will spread before you know it. this can also be done every month or even biweekly to prevent future outbreaks. another way to try and prevent mites is to always wash your hands before and after you handle different reptiles... especially at pet stores and reptile shows. good luck.
-Will

here's a link for it.
http://www.pro-products.com/miteandtemp.html
what you may want to consider also is giving your snake a bath in flea and tick shampoo for dogs. i havent ever done it but theres some other guy on this forum who swears it works, and logically i can see how it would. mites have a very close biological relationship to fleas asnd ticks, so basically mix some soap with water and let them soak for about half and hour a couple times and they should be gone.
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The reason mainstream thought is thought of as a stream is because it's so shallow. -George Carlin

A fool doesn't learn. A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Which one are you?

My Website
Rat/Corn snake care sheet I wrote

Current snakes:
0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat (Lola)
1.0 Neonate Black Rat (het for Lic Stk's) (Frankie)
1.1 Texas Bairds (Jose and Rosa)
0.1 Blue Beauty (Brunhilde)

Most dog and pet shampoos contain both an active ingredient (usually an isomer of pyrethrin), synergist and many inerts that have been proven in several studies to be toxic to reptiles. Some of the most recent studies were using these to kill brown tree snakes in the Pacific islands and are marketed in products to kill snakes in Asia & Indonesia. These chemicals will not cause any problems to the host they were tested on and approved for, mammals. These products have never been tested on reptiles and this is why the label doesn't cover such use. If such tests were performed, they would never receive EPA approval as these chemicals have already been shown to be toxic to reptiles.

Bob