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What's up snake fans,

Cypress Mulch as a substrate
For years I had heard that cypress mulch is a great substrate because it's cheap, nontoxic, and holds humidity fairly well. I have used it for several of my herps with great success, but after today I'm swearing off the stuff. I know a lot of herpers who love using it, and I never had any problem with it for quite some time...until now.

BUGS!!!
When I recently changed my red tail boa's cage, I added a fresh bag of cypress mulch. I have done this many, many times and never had bug problems until now. When I went to change his water bowl a few days later I realized it was peppered with dozens of black little bugs. I took a closer look at the snake and the poor girl had them all over her. I took a look around the cage and they were all over it.

Can anyone identify the bug?
I'm not a bug expert but they appear to be very small ticks to me. Can anyone confirm/correct this? They have the general oval shape with tiny legs in the front, and smear blood when crushed. The one in the picture is about as big as they get. The bag had been frozen at one point and then thawed out and they still managed to thrive.

Poor snake . . .
I have her quarantined in a different tank being treated with mite/tick spray. The whole cage got sprayed down several times and is sitting empty right now. I threw away everything in it and hopefully they didn't spread anywhere else. I have heard a little bit of debate about not using inexpensive beddings because of bugs, like cypress mulch from the hardware store, and for quite some time I had no problems with it. But believe me, when you do finally have a problem it is a BIG HEADACHE!

What does everyone else think about cypress?
Anyone else had good/bad experiences using the stuff?

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Jesse Rothacker
Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary
Find out how YOU can get involved in reptile rescue...
www.forgottenfriend.org

Those are snake mites. Get some Provent-a-mite. Don't mess around with other half remedies, regardless of what you hear. Follow the directions on the Provent-a-mite and it will solve your problem.

I have heard rumors of the substrates having mites before, but I have one fundamental problem with that idea. What were the mites feeding on when they were in the mulch? They can't live indefinitely in the mulch and they require snakes to feed on so they can't live long in the bagged mulch. If you buy your mulch at a petstore, I might be able to follow the logic, but if you buy it at a hardware/home improvement/garden center, I don't think the mites could survive.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

And I am wondering if Area has something to do with mite infested cypress mulch..There are alot of snakes around here and if mites are anything like fleas,maybe they can sit dormant in the mulch for months waiting for a meal to present itself..
But the mites could have been dormant in my house and happened to reappear when I switched back to cypress from newspaper
Or they could have come from me storing the bags of cypress on my porch..Personally after having bug problems from cypress several times(not just mites either)Ive given up on using it at least for now..When my Tegu gets bigger Im going to have to try again.
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They can live dormant for months... Especially cold months, waiting for a meal.

That's why you use Provent A Mite on any substrate.
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake
www.freewebs.com/badyear2005

That's a mite, and it's an adult. If you found lots of those in the cage, it sounds very unlikely to me that they came from the last bag of mulch. I'm almost certain that your boa was already infested and you just didn't notice before. I guess it's posible that a few mites came in a bag months ago and that's what started the problem, but I can't see how lots of adult mites would end up in the same bag (unless it had a live snake in it).

I use cypress mulch and have had several outbreaks of mites, but every time the highest concentration has been in the cage with the most recent snake...

The only bug problem I've had that I know is from mulch was when I used eucalyptus mulch which maybe 30% of the time came with a breeding colony of black ants. They didn't really cause problems for the snakes, they were just annoying.

Thanks everyone
thanks everyone for your imput. You have all offered a lot of good ideas. I have a hard time believing that these mites were on the snake the whole time without me noticing them because I check water bowls all the time for any specks, which is usually where I find mites if I find any. I think if it did have them all this time, I would have noticed some in the water bowls because I change them regularly and always check for strange particles.

I still have to think it's the mulch
The only variable that changed before the mites showed up is the fresh bag of mulch, so I have to think that's where it came from. Even then it took several days for them to pop up so maybe they were dormant in the fresh bag of mulch and took a few days to really show up. That's my best guess. In any case she is being quarantined and treated for mites and hopefully I'll get to the bottom of this soon.

Who knows what snake mites are???
One last question. A couple people have reported "yes these are snake mites" but I'm sure that have a more scientific classification. Does anyone know what "snake mites" are really called and how they compare to other mites/ticks? What family are they in? Are there several common snake mites or just a few? I think any info along those lines would be interesting. So far the ones I see the most are these little black ones, and this is the first time I've really stopped to examine them closely. From what I understand some ticks/mites prefer mammals over reptiles, so do snake mites only prey on reptiles? Any suggested readings or websites would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Jesse Rothacker
Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary
Find out how YOU can get involved in reptile rescue...
www.forgottenfriend.org

I had this happen to me. I had been using towels in my GTP tub, but wanted to try some cypress mulch to see if I could get the humidity to stay longer. Mites are pretty easy to see on paper towels, so they weren't there before. I got a bag of mulch and used it. A few days later there were dozens of mites crawling all over the bottom of my tub. I just happened to notice them and immediately removed the mulch and hit the tub with a mild bleach and water solution.

Put paper towels back and have never had a problem with mites again. Good thing for me that it was an arboral snake and he didn't get any on him.
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I've also had this happen. I am a hypochondriac when it comes to all of my animals, and I notice the slightest change in anything nearly immediatly - it's absolutly impossible that I wouldn't have noticed an infestation of mites... but, one day I put a new bag of cypress mulch in, and 2 days later there were tonnes of mites. I treated them, and I've never had it happen since. So, I agree with you that it was likely the mulch. I don't know how they got in there, but it's the only variable that changed.

I too treat all of the substrate before putting it in the tank now.