Just found mites

[corr]

Hey all. I'm freakin out right now! I just found little black mites on my BCI. Can someone help me out? I got this guy in August and he is my most recent addition to my collection. So, I'm a little miffed as to where the mites came from. I cleaned out his cage with vinnegar, put him in a bag, washed up and proceeded to check my other snakes. No one else has any signs of mites. What else can I do??? TIA

[DataRipper]

I would use Nix.. same stuff you would use on your head for lice..mixed the same way and everything..Then use Wite paper towl WASH EVERYTHING and bake what you can sticks ect..
then watch.. for them.. make sure you bath the snake with the nix! it will work..

good luck ... Vinnegar will Do nothing..

[DataRipper]

there is also something elese you can buy.. online.. called black kinght witch you can spray around your house....again good luck..

[Toirtis]

Originally posted by DataRipper
I would use Nix.. same stuff you would use on your head for lice..mixed the same way and everything..

Nix must be mixed at a ratio of one standard bottle of Nix to a gallon of distilled water....no stronger, or it can be harmful. This is a suspension, and must be shaken before each use or transfer into another vessel. Put some into a clean spray bottle, spray the snake from end to end, and after cleaning the enclosure with a 5% bleach in hot water solution (rinse very well with plain water), give the entire enclosre a light misting with the Nix solution, and allow to dry before replacing any substrate (newspaper/butcher paper/paper towel is best, as mites hide and lay eggs in soil/bark/mulch/etc) and cage furniture (which also must be fully disinfected before replacing).

[Simon]

Corr,

Are you Cory in London Ontario?
Cause if you are you can come to my place and borrow a bottle of my reptile relief and spray it on the snake...it works well and witin a 2 -3 weeks time you're going to be mite free.

If you're not the Cory in London then you can try and get the reptile relief that I am talking about and it works great~~

[corr]

Hey thanks Simon! Yeah it's the same Cory ;) I'll give you a call!

Thanks DataRipper and Toirtis too for the quick replies! What would I do without sSnakeSs.com?!?!

[Linds]

I've used the commercial mite treatments out there, and I always end up using BK. Nix works ok, but you have to get it on every single part of the enclosure, as it is a soap. Same as Provent-a-Mite. Another thing about Nix I don't like is that you have to wet down the enclosure with it, not very good for dryu climate species, and something I'm not comfortable doing in rubbermaids and the like as it will just remain wet and humid for days with the stuff :/ I also get worried about the snakes tracking it in to their water. I like using BK personally. What I do following a good cleaning of the enclosure and everything has been removed, give the enclosure a quick spray of the stuff and close it up so the chemicals can spread (it's in an aerosol form) in to all parts of the enclosure. I let it sit for half hour or so, then I open the enclosure and allow it to air out before putting the snake back in. If you choose BK make sure there are no bugs in the room that you want to keep alive, the stuff will knock 'em out, even if they are on the other side. I also open my window during this period as well. Regardless of what treatment you decide on, its a good idea to give the snake a bath using a mild dishsoap (I use Ivory for this, it contains no ammonia or anything like most) and water. Let the snake soak in that for a while and rinse well. Should kill all the mites that are on the snake.

Originally posted by Simon

Cause if you are you can come to my place and borrow a bottle of my reptile relief and spray it on the snake...it works well and witin a 2 -3 weeks time you're going to be mite free.


I hate reptile relief. They say it is all natural and safe, yet you can't get it on your hands and I when we used it at work the one and only time, we couldn't even breathe. The stuff has us winded. I dunno... not very impressive stuff by my experience.

[Cruciform]

Yay for Londoners :)

Is there a local herp group around here?

[corr]

Thanks for the info Linds! I just did some reading on treating snake mites with BK and some suggest that you should spray the snake directly! That sounds a little scary to me. You think that just soaking in soapy water will do the trick as long as the BK is used on the cage and stuff? Where do I get Black Knight? Canadian Tire?

[corr]

Originally posted by Cruciform
Yay for Londoners :)

Is there a local herp group around here?

:D Not that I know of! Wanna start one? :D

Hey Cruciform, I work at Standard A/G in St Thomas. Come by and say hi! :)

[Auskan]

I used dish soap for mites. One treatment and I never saw another mite. I put a couple inches of water in a little rubbermaid then left it to sit for several hours to make sure it was at room temp. Then I added a small amount of warmer water (no more than 1 measuring cup) just to raise the temp slightly, but I didn't want it too warm. I then squirted a little dishsoap in, and moved my hand around to gently mix it without frothing. Let the snake swim for about 10 minutes, and then took him out, dried him with a paper towel and put him in his enclosure. Worked like a charm.

[gonesnakee]

Use NIX search the forums & you will find TONS of info. Nix not only kills mites, but it also kills their eggs. Spraying NIX does not mean that the enclosure has too stay wet or be humid as stated above. You use it, let it dry & then you have a perfectly dry enclosure with a slight residue left behind to kill all eggs & any remaining mites. Dish soap is good for washing dishes LOL Don't keep a water dish in with the snake until the Nix treatment has been completed will eliminate the snake "washing" off the residue & also prevent ingestion of it. Just offer your snake a drink daily instead. Once all mites & eggs are dead snake can be washed off & housed normally. BIG CONCERN is that every single snake & their cages MUST BE treated as you can GUARANTEE they have been exposed if they are in the same room. An adult mite can travel like 8 ft in an hour or something like that & are very successful at finding "hosts". Many people only treat the one animal only to have them continually pop up agmonst others in their collection. If you got the snake in August you can assume your place is crawling with them. Being a Boa also make sure to soak the pit area well as thats where they are mostly missed when offing the little suckers. One treatment is not enough. Treat weekly for a month & that will guarantee your success. One missed gravid female means a few months down the road you start off in the same boat as you where to begin with, crawling with them. I have been forced to deal with these little pests plenty in the past & speak from experience, I'm not just an interet opinion. A proper quarantine proceudure in the first place would have saved you & your animals plenty of hassle. I treat all new specimens as if they are "packing" & keep them from the rest until I can guarantee it. If everyone else did this, no one would have mites & I wouldn't continually have to be reading/posting on these threads DOH! (I hate mites! LOL) Mark

EDIT: Heres all the info you will ever need:

http://www.*************/TARAS/contents/care.htm

You will have to type in "the other site" .ca (kingsnake) as it won't come up on this site & go to the Nix Treatment section. There is also a bunch of care sheets there for basic herpers :p

[Linds]

Yeah I wouldn't recommend spraying BK on your snake at all. I know a lot of places recommend it, but it IS a pretty strong chemical nonetheless (if it can kill a bug across the room...yeesh). Even though they used to spray people with it... :eek: Soap and water will kill anything on the snake with no harm done to your snake, BK does a great job of taking care of the enclosure, every little nook and cranny. I missed the part about your other snakes, if one snake has mites, you automatically must treat all of them, even if they don't have any visible mites on them. I'm not sure who has BK at the moment. It comes and goes with most places, as it has to come up from the states. I got mine from Andrew @ Mice4You. Grant sometimes has it I believe. It's a good practice to pretreat new additions for mites as a preventative measure.

Originally posted by gonesnakee
Spraying NIX does not mean that the enclosure has too stay wet or be humid as stated above. You use it, let it dry & then you have a perfectly dry enclosure with a slight residue left behind to kill all eggs & any remaining mites.

While this may work with a few animals, if you are treating a sizeable collection, it isn't always possible to leave all the snakes out of their enclosures for the hours it takes to dry each one. I know if I allowed each enclosure to dry before putting the snake in it, it would take me easily a week to treat everyone, and by that time I would be having to start all over :/

[ChristinaM]

Originally posted by corr
:D Not that I know of! Wanna start one? :D

Hey Cruciform, I work at Standard A/G in St Thomas. Come by and say hi! :)

If you start one, count me in :D


Good luck with the mites Cory :)

[corr]

Thanks again for all the help everyone! There sure are a lot of ways to treat mites, my head's a spinnin!

I ended up getting the Reptile Relief from Simon last night (Thanks dude!) and proceeded to clean all the cages out. I have four snakes, all in fifty gallon cages. I pulled everything out of all of them and soaked in 5% bleach solution. I then wiped down the Boa cage with the bleach too, then rinsed and dried. The Boa was soaking in Ivory dishwater at this time. I then sprayed every cage with RR as well as the floor and area around the cages. I sprayed RR on a rag and thoroughly wiped down every snake and put them back in the cages on paper towel with a single hide on the cool side (the room is at 80). During this whole process, I only saw maybe two dozen mites, none of them in the other snake cages. This morning I saw 2 crawling in the boa cage and I squished them. I think I didn't use enough of the RR because it is supposed to kill them on contact. The stuff has no residual effect and the mites need to be wet with it so tonight I'll spray some more.

IYO, do you think there would be more mites if the BCI had them the whole time? I heard they can come in on feeders, but I feed frozen. With the exception of a couple of live ones that I bought a couple of months ago for my Ball. If they came on these then you'd think that the Ball would have the mites. Hmmm, I dunno... just tryin to figure out where the heck the little buggers came from!

[JonD]

Mites can hop on you anywhere there are snakes. It is possible that they came from the feeders that a pet store employee has a mite or two on a sleeve. It then could move on to the rodent. Pet shows or even visiting pet stores give can bring you in contact with mites. They hitch a ride on you and end up in your collection.;)

[Linds]

Originally posted by corr
IYO, do you think there would be more mites if the BCI had them the whole time? I heard they can come in on feeders, but I feed frozen. With the exception of a couple of live ones that I bought a couple of months ago for my Ball. If they came on these then you'd think that the Ball would have the mites.

It wouldn't make too much of a difference if it were frozen or not, the mites are only on the rodent for a short period of time hitching a ride. Reptile mites are host specific. I was unlucky enough to have my collection infected once before from a few mites that hitched a ride in a lot of feeder insects :mad: They are tricky little buggers. As Jon said, they can come in on just about anything :rolleyes: