Emergency! Please Read..

uhhlise_nacole · 01-26-17, 03:06 AM

I am in full panic mode as to this has never happened before.. while handling tonight we found mites on two of our snakes after noticing one soaking repeatedly throughout the day. that triggered an instant red flag when I could not keep her out of the bowl. I've researched as much as I can to find out exactly what to do and what products to use. I would much prefer firsthand knowledge from somebody who has experienced this. I'm just unsure as to what we could have done wrong. we always quarantine anybody new. I'm just hoping it was caught early enough. I'm terrified and would appreciate any help\words of advice.

**Tsubaki** · 01-26-17, 03:11 AM

I could type a whole bunch of advice, but I already did that before here:Mite prevention and treatment options If 2 snakes have them, assume all of them have mites. How long do you quarantine? Did you visit anywhere with reptiles? Get new items from a shop where they keep reptiles? Multitude of places mites can come from to be honest.

uhhlise_nacole · 01-26-17, 03:20 AM

Thank you for linking that! I had tried searching before posting a desperate plea for help as I had assumed there's no way this couldn't have been brought up before, but for some reason the search option wasn't working for me.
We quarantine for 7 days.. we do frequent quite a few different reptile sores.
I feel like this is every owner's worst fear. I also didn't realize there were SO many different ways to obtain them.

**Tsubaki** · 01-26-17, 07:49 AM

7 days? That is way too short, I quarantine for 6 months. But bare minimum is 6-7weeks. (Lifespan of a mite)

**EL Ziggy** · 01-26-17, 09:41 AM

Tsubaki's right. You should extend your QT to at least 60-90 days. Best wishes getting rid of those icky mites.

**Pareeeee** · 01-26-17, 09:44 AM

I can also vouch for the Nix treatment from Tsubaki's link - worked very well on the mites I acquired when I got my corn from an expo a few years ago.

GyGbeetle · 01-26-17, 09:58 AM

I just got over a round with mites, and Tsubaki's post is GOLD. It should be a sticky note in ALL of the forums. I used the Prevent-a-Mite method. All the snakes were already out of quarantine, so I most likely picked them up at a trade show.

Here is what I did:

- each snake got put into a bath to soak as much as possible
- while they were soaking, their enclosure was completely removed of all bedding, fully sanitized, and PAM was sprayed all over the walls, floors, sides, and even about a 2 foot distance on the ground around the enclosure
- treated each snake individually after their soak (there are a lot of differing methods for this. A lot of folks like the NIX method, but read up on it a LOT before you use it, as the active ingredient, if not diluted well enough, will kill your snake or leave it with severe neurological issues)
- put the snakes into a pillow case for safe keeping
- let the PAM dissipate for 4 hours before putting the snake back into enclosure on paper towels. There are a lot of differing opinions on how long to keep the snake out of the enclosure after PAM has been sprayed. I used 4 hours, some have gone up to 24 hours. I think any happy medium in between is at your discretion, although I wouldn't put an animal back in before 4 hours.
- note, your enclosure will most likely look cloudy, but that's normal. It's the PAM sticking to the sides of the enclosure. I have glass ones, so it was cloudy. Don't wash it off. this is what will kill the bugs
- kept the water out of the enclosure for 24 hours after spraying PAM

I used JurassiMite on the snakes instead of NIX, because I didn't have all the information I needed on how to dilute NIX, or which NIX product to purchase (apparently there's more than 1 product out there). JurassiMite is safe for the animals; it's mostly clove and cinnamon extract, which the mites hate and cannot survive in. I treated the animals once at time the exposure was identified, and then once a week thereafter. PAM was sprayed at 2 week intervals (too much and you run the risk of over-exposing the snakes to the harsh chemicals).

I broke protocol and put the substrate back in after 3 weeks, because one of the snakes was having a really hard time shedding, and was incredibly dry, despite putting her in soak. she needed the moisture more than I needed to save money on the bedding while we got rid of the mites.

We have been mite free now for almost 2 months. It works. Mites are the worst things in the world. I hate them. I panicked when I first saw them, and went to this forum like you did, which was the best thing I could've done. Because apparently everyone gets those buggers at some point in their snake handling tenure.

uhhlise_nacole · 01-26-17, 05:45 PM

We have purchased individual tubs for everyone for soaking\treatment, plenty of ventilation. Spent the last hour getting it all prepared. Starting soaks now.. Sadly we weren't able to get Nix in our area. All they had available was a 3 step treatment. We were able to find a store in the next town over that carried 'Natural Chemistry' Reptile Spray. That was the most convenient option to nip this fast. All bedding\porous objects have been disposed of far away outside bagged up tight. Have paper towels to go in once enclosure is fully taken care of. Will post more updates once we get the treatment going.. hoping for the best.

mattd · 01-26-17, 07:18 PM

sorry to hear that uhhlise can u see them crawling. i checked my last night dint see anything. i see lil black specks in water a few but seems like its from the moss in humidity boxes.

akane · 01-26-17, 11:55 PM

Having had a lot of animals I can say you will deal with parasites. It will happen. Some are worse than others. Omg tropical rat mites=hell. The worst thing I have dealt with and someone said they considered them worse than bed bugs and just moved while trashing everything that couldn't be sterilized. 1 fed female falls in a tank/bin and the rodents in it are done. They will go from fine to dead in less than 24hrs as the 100s of mites hatch and feed off them stuck in the tank. While majority are stuck they will spread anyway. I went in to the doctor for rashes, scaly skin, and bite lines but he couldn't identify it and gave me steroid cream to see if it would help. The cat was on prednisone, the youngest dog was on antibiotics both for having red rashes and infected places on their bellies. We finally found this was all the tropical rat mites. The best thing ever was to make bio-active tanks. All that native soil I brought in from the wild was packed with mite species beyond what most usually see. Turns out that's because I had all sorts of predatory mites eating that mass of tropical rat mites and poultry mites from next door. A few of those escaping into the mite population of the house and no more tropical rat mites. No more going insane scratching, no more meds, no more dead rodents... The amount of advantage, revolution, and ivermectin I went through treating the guinea pigs, gerbils, mice, cats, dogs, birds.... I have never seen anything that bad before. I have a huge aversion to cold water especially when I'm tired and I was taking ice cold showers in desperation before bed to stop the biting.

Some do use the predatory mites with snake mites. It's a natural method in bio-active. My bullsnake was kept and treated with ivermectin an extra month because the person missed some snake mites and he was near the new ones. Like usual there are a range of approaches and I haven't had to look into the risks and benefits of each luckily. Hopefully with my natural population of predatory mites I never have to research mites again.

SnakeyJay · 01-27-17, 09:08 AM

Quarantine should be 6 months as has been said... It helps stop mites spreading but also most diseases that can spread among your collection can be caught and treated during this quarantine period.

With a 7 day quarantine routine you may as well just have no quarantine tbh...

Good luck, and hopefully you can get this one sorted quickly for you.

SnakeyJay · 01-27-17, 09:21 AM

Quarantine should be 6 months as has been said... It helps stop mites spreading but also most diseases that can spread among your collection can be caught and treated during this quarantine period.

With a 7 day quarantine routine you may as well just have no quarantine tbh...

Good luck, and hopefully you can get this one sorted quickly for you.

GyGbeetle · 01-27-17, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akane

Having had a lot of animals I can say you will deal with parasites. It will happen. Some are worse than others. Omg tropical rat mites=hell. The worst thing I have dealt with and someone said they considered them worse than bed bugs and just moved while trashing everything that couldn't be sterilized. 1 fed female falls in a tank/bin and the rodents in it are done. They will go from fine to dead in less than 24hrs as the 100s of mites hatch and feed off them stuck in the tank. While majority are stuck they will spread anyway. I went in to the doctor for rashes, scaly skin, and bite lines but he couldn't identify it and gave me steroid cream to see if it would help. The cat was on prednisone, the youngest dog was on antibiotics both for having red rashes and infected places on their bellies. We finally found this was all the tropical rat mites. The best thing ever was to make bio-active tanks. All that native soil I brought in from the wild was packed with mite species beyond what most usually see. Turns out that's because I had all sorts of predatory mites eating that mass of tropical rat mites and poultry mites from next door. A few of those escaping into the mite population of the house and no more tropical rat mites. No more going insane scratching, no more meds, no more dead rodents... The amount of advantage, revolution, and ivermectin I went through treating the guinea pigs, gerbils, mice, cats, dogs, birds.... I have never seen anything that bad before. I have a huge aversion to cold water especially when I'm tired and I was taking ice cold showers in desperation before bed to stop the biting.

Some do use the predatory mites with snake mites. It's a natural method in bio-active. My bullsnake was kept and treated with ivermectin an extra month because the person missed some snake mites and he was near the new ones. Like usual there are a range of approaches and I haven't had to look into the risks and benefits of each luckily. Hopefully with my natural population of predatory mites I never have to research mites again.

OMG!!!!! I've never even heard of this before. It sounds awful.

I concur about those predatory mites. I've read additional literature on their effectiveness. I think it might even be in Tsubaki's post too if I'm not mistaken? It's what I'm going to use prophylactically for prevention of mites.

uhhlise_nacole · 01-28-17, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnakeyJay

Quarantine should be 6 months as has been said... It helps stop mites spreading but also most diseases that can spread among your collection can be caught and treated during this quarantine period.

With a 7 day quarantine routine you may as well just have no quarantine tbh...

Good luck, and hopefully you can get this one sorted quickly for you.

I VERY much agree, what we had been doing was absolutely pointless. I realize this now. I've slept about 4 hours the past 2 days from constantly monitoring them all. We had to help the Burm release three from her eye.