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I found what I think is a Mite today on my Burmese. It actually was crawling on my hand when I had it out. Then I checked the snake and do not see any on it crawling or tucked underneath any scales. I know there is different type of bathing techniques to help get rid of mites. Could you help me with any info you might have on this. I just wanna take the fastest safest action I can. Thanks a lot

>>I found what I think is a Mite today on my Burmese. It actually was crawling on my hand when I had it out. Then I checked the snake and do not see any on it crawling or tucked underneath any scales. I know there is different type of bathing techniques to help get rid of mites. Could you help me with any info you might have on this. I just wanna take the fastest safest action I can. Thanks a lot

To ensure you get ride of mites, you need to make sure you do the following.

1. Take everything out of your snake cage.
2. Let your snake soak for at least a couple of hours. Make sure you don’t put too much water where the snake has to swim. The water should only cover 2/3 of her body.
3. With everything out of the cage, use water and bleach and spray everything down. I used about 20% of bleach. I let it soak for about 30 minutes and then I scrubbed everything down with more water & bleach along with your basic dish washing liquid. I then hosed everything down, making sure I got all the bleach and soap completely off.
4. Let sit for about 1 hour to make sure everything is dry.
5. Do the same to the water bowl
6. Spray the cage down with Provent-A-Mite and seal the cage to make sure the fumes work themselves in. Make sure no fumes are available before placing your snake in there again.
7. If you have a hide boxes or logs, make sure you spray it down with Provent-A-Mite.

The next step is critical if you want to prevent future mites, once you eliminated them by following the steps above…

1. Only feed your snake frozen thawed mice, rats, etc. Freezing kills all mites and parasites and is the only way to make sure you don’t introduced them again, which will mostly likely occur if you feed live or freshly killed rats.
2. For the next 3 to 5 weeks, follow all the steps listed above

The following is not required but I found it to work a lot better for me. Don’t use any substrate. I have all my animals in vision cages and I find it a lot easier to clean and keep clean.

I had mites once, and it took me just a couple of weeks to get ride of them but it’s been over 8 months, I have yet to see one again. And believe me, I look for them with a magnifying glass!

Good luck.

Frank

Im using Provent-A-Mite now cuz my burm has mites and im on my second week of treatment and i must say the stuff is amazing and its worth every penny
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1 Burmese python
1 savu python
1 blood python
2 Uromastyx mali, Nigerian
2 savannah monitors
2 pacman frogs
1 scalata tortoises

In addition to treating the burm and the cage, I would also HIGHLY recommend that you use the POM around the base of the cage, baseboards and around the general vicinity. Mites leave their host to lay their eggs and leaving the cage is well w/in their normal behavior. Just wanted to put that out there.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>Im using Provent-A-Mite now cuz my burm has mites and im on my second week of treatment and i must say the stuff is amazing and its worth every penny
>>>>
>>>>
>>-----
>>1 Burmese python
>>1 savu python
>>1 blood python
>>2 Uromastyx mali, Nigerian
>>2 savannah monitors
>>2 pacman frogs
>>1 scalata tortoises
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Also if you have carpeting...sprinkle borax at the baseboards and around the cage if it is on a stand. Leave it for a few days and vacuum it up. It helps with mites, fleas (if ya keep those furry four legged critters) and silverfish.
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Coastal Carpet Python 0.1 (Lillith)
Albino Burm 0.1 (Kimba RIP 10/23/04)
Columbian RedTail 0.1 (Squishy)
Kenyan Sand Boa 1.0 (Shai'hulud) MIA
Brown Water Snake 0.1 (Fang)
Common Snapping Turtle 1.1 (Sherman and Tiger)
(RIP Abrahms)
RES 1.0 (speedy)
African Rock Python (Mongo) 0.0.1

Provent-a-mite definitely works. I used it once, "once", about four years ago, and haven't had a single mite since. As a matter of fact, it seems to have worked so well that I'm almost suspicious as to just how toxic the stuff must be!

Anyways, it worked for me. Now I have an almost full can that's been sitting on my shelf for four years collecting dust. And if all goes well, it'll sit there indefinitely, doing nothing but collecting dust.

- Mark
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I feel the same way about Black Knight. I bought as much as I could some time back, and had to use it only once.
But damn!!It's mighty handy around the house.
Especially for ants!