Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A little background: I have 4 breeder Western Fence Lizards. These were wild caught and stayed in an outdore enclosure where they thrived through the summer. I recently put them in quarentine in hopes to move them to my reprile room. I never even realy looked for mites when I collected them but asumed they had them as most out here do. I have 2 adults and 2 juv,s The 2 adults have quite a few mites and one of them had a few ticks. I have them in quarentine and have been cleaning the quarentine enclosures as well as treating the lizards with a mite killer every day so far. I finaly believe the ticks have been iraticated and the mights are disapearing fast. The 2 young lizards showed no signs of infection ever but they are beign treated as well sence they were in the same enclosure with the adults. Now to the question. Is visual confirmation enough? How can you be double sure all the mites are gone for good? Some of them are so small and very hard to see if able to see at all. I have an extreamly expencive reptile room and dont want to take the chance of infecting the room however want to be able to house these 4 in there. Thanks for the help.
My Research and Collection

This can be a diffucult question. Visible confirmation is about all that you have so it has to be good enough! Bloodwork can show the response to a parasitic infection, but it won't give you anything specific, nor will it give you an end point.

What kind of quarantine do you have set up? This needs to be indoors (albeit far from your herp room). A sterile type enclosure is necessary for several reasons.
1) It eliminates places for parasites to hide when off the host
2) Easy to clean and to monitor for stray parasites
3) Easy to collect fresh fecal material for analysis of internal parasites
4) Allows you to monitor your captives closer
--> it is important to note that a sterile environment is stressfull on wild-caught animals. Efforts to provide seclusion should be made.

For external parasite detection, a magnifying glass may be helpfull; here's what I suggest.
Aim for a quarantine period of 2 months. This is less then normal, but you've already been observing these animals all summer.
Record on the calander the number of parasites seen with a 4 system (4 being lots, 3 , 2 ect). Once parasites are inconsistently seen both on the herps and in the environment, aim for 3 weeks of clearance. Monitor daily, but weekly take each animal and examine under a magnifying glass throughly and entirely.
Three weeks of no visible parasites, 3 months of healthy observation and I"d feel safe bringing them into a herp room. If you plan on mixing these into a community enclosure, I would wait a year for them to first prove their over-all health, and that they've accustomed to captivity.

Ian