I’ve got about 40 snakes with mites in my snake room and it has been stressful to say the least. I have been treating them with an ivermectin solution for the last three weeks and kept them on paper towels in their tubs the whole time. I am about to switch them back to a better bedding so I don’t give anyone a RI but I just want to know if anyone has successfully handled an outbreak with this many snakes. I feel like I get the numbers low but end up finding one or two with them. I have about 40 ball pythons, 4 adult boas, and 6 adult blood pythons. Thank You
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I would recommend moving everyone to paper towels and giving them each a water dish (if they don’t already). Are they in the same rack? I recommend separating the racks so mites can’t spread and then treating each rack at a time with a deep clean, prevent-a-mite treatment and a bath for each snake with a drop of dish soap. This may need to be done multiple times so I would leave them separated until you’re sure that none of them have mites. Are you positive that they’re snake mites?
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Honestly, Taurus mites.
I know of a few people who tried loads of things and only Taurus mites worked.
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Back in the old days when I had a bunch of animals I’d occasionally have to deal with mites whether from a new purchase or going to shows etc… The best success I had with dealing with them was Black Knight (which I don’t believe is available any longer) and Provent A Mite.
Remember when you are treating for mites you need to clean the entire enclosure inside and out, vacuum any carpet, basically anything within the room where the reptiiles are being kept can harbor the mites as they scurry around looking for their next victim/meal.
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I’ll put my process on here too, I treat each of them with the solution once a week and clean they’re entire tub with the solution and try to wipe as much of the rack system as I can. Then keep they’re water out for 3 days. I also spray the paper towels with the solution and respray at least once during the week.
I’d love to be able to separate but it’s an ars rack and I haven’t thought of a way to be able to keep the levels separate and have enough space in the room. I am pretty sure they are sake mites. They have blood in them and they’re under the scales.
I saw some about that on here. Are there any in the US?
They sound like snake mites, you might just have to spend a day cleaning out everything at once to make sure mites don’t escape from an uncleaned tub to a cleaned tub.
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I have done that once a week for three weeks. It’s crazy aggravating. And I really figured spraying the snakes would prevent some of that or it seems like it’d be impossible to be thorough enough.
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Lower the parasite load.
- Remove and bag all snakes.
- Clean all equipment, submerge tubs, bowls, etc. in soapy water for 60 seconds.
- coat each snake thoroughly with vegetable oil. Wait 60 seconds. Put dawn dish soap directly onto the oil, and rub it in. Rinse, repeat dawn if necessary to remove oil residue.
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Kill the mites.
- treat each animal and all equipment with frontline spray. Ensure it gets in every nook and cranny.
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Wait a week or so. At this point if you look closely in the dimple of their cheek or around the rim of their eyes you’ll probably see white mites moving around. These are the freshly hatched mites from leftover eggs. Soak all snakes and equipment one more time, and that should knock it out.
The biggest mistake I see is people treating for mites but not killing the next generation when the eggs hatch in the following weeks.
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Predators do not eradicate their prey. You may never think you have a problem in your collection because the predators keep the prey at a low burn but when you sell a snake to someone else, they will get mites. I don’t purchase any snakes from anyone using predatory mites for this reason.
I’ve never ‘touch wood’ had a problem with mites on my royals.
But we’ve been told by a few people these work and they’ve never had a problem again (nor have people who brought the snakes as were breeders).
Just going by what I’ve been told and the people we know who use them and recommend, a friend also used them on a rescue and touch wood nothing since!!
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Second this.
The only mite infestation I’ve had so far was impossible to kill off, until I did things this way.
Treat all the snakes in the infected area directly for the mites. The little bastards move more than you think.
Absolutely sterilize all equipment in the room. Don’t just wipe it down with your chemical treatment, soak it and let it sit, everything. They hide the eggs everywhere.
Ban any fur bearing animals from the area, and wash clothing immediately. I personally believe, the damn things came from a show on our clothing. And migrated around the house the same way.
Plan to retreat within a week, because you did miss eggs.
Plan to repeat the exercise at least twice.
Until you go full unrestricted chemical warfare option, you won’t get rid of them permanently, they’ll be back.
Don’t forget the floors, walls and ceilings of the affected area. Mine didn’t go away fully until I mopped the floors with nix, every 3 days, for 3 weeks, it sucked. But I firmly believe it set a barrier, which may have prevented migrators from coming back into the zone. The mites don’t predate us or our mammal pets, but they will hitchhike.
Good luck, and be kind, don’t send anything out until you know you are mite free. And be wary and ruthless with quarantine.
I know at least one breeder who told me he always takes at least one white snake to any show, not for sale, for examination. He treats and quarantines everything he brings back including his own snakes, as a routine preventative measure.
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Hope I never get any. My gosh!
But with Taurus mites you’re suppose to use them twice. Once to get rid of mites and then again.
They’ve used them in a shop where the other half works (he’s aquatic wholesale out back, not the shop, but it is attached) but they’ve used them and never an issue also.
Also Tried everything with the carpet a friend had, he had tried sprays and all and did nothing at all to help or clear him.
Only thing that worked was Taurus mites!
All his other snakes were fine too.
Just hope I never get any, but with speaking to breeders and friends I will personally use Taurus mites myself!
Wouldn’t work here for me. My “reptile facility” is a room in the main house. We have furry pets who are inside/outside. We live out in the country, on a farm, in the South. Heat + humidity + wild spaces = bugs. Having ticks and fleas come in on the pets is just a fact of life, even if you treat for them. So you clean and treat the house, frequently. No issues. But wild roaming Taurus mites would not survive, since we use non-specific chemicals in the house. Outside areas we use DE and predatory biologicals so we’re not indiscriminately killing everything and poisoning the garden etc.
Or, as my wife says “Nature! Get it off me!” 
Our ‘reptile room’ is outside, converted the outhouse.
By Hideyoshi is being brought in, May reconsider now as I Also have dogs and other furry animals and live in the country! So Now you’re worrying me haha 
She sounds Amazing! If I see a moth I run, I’m out the room and gone 
Yet I can feed my reptiles crickets and other insects and rats 
Having the snakes inside isn’t a real problem so far, just the one episode early on. Certainly makes it easier to keep an eye on things.
Yeah, my wife actually is amazing. Annnd she likes spiders, tarantulas and rodents. She pets rats, coos over mice before we feed them off (yes, I have to keep her from naming them, 'cause then they’re pets…), and she’ll let tarantulas walk on her hand.
But one cockroach randomly walks across her line of sight and she is up on the nearest elevated object with a shriek. 
Unlike me. Don’t like rodents, except as snake food. Tarantulas belong in sealed glass boxes, at someone else’s place, far away from me.
Spiders are awesome creatures, in the wild, at arms length, definitely not on me.
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Luckily for me I don’t feed live.
I’d probably cry every feed (Vegan) haha.
What a wonderful woman though! I bet it’s hard not to name!
The perks of having someone who loves the same animals as you, well to a degree! I always hear ‘I need to ask my partner’. God knows what I’d do if he hated lizards or snake haha
Ugh Reece had spiders, I loved our regal jumping girl, she was awesome, but he snuck in a dwarf Brazilian blue diamond and an obt because he knew I hated them! Oh and hid them so I didn’t know for days until I found tiny crickets and was asking why we needed them I got over it but never would touch one! I did feed at times which was cool though…
Spiders, ok fine
Giant spiders, uhhmmm
Giant Hairy spiders, nope
Giant hairy spiders with open cages, loose in the room, crawling on an unsuspecting person’s shoulder and stroking their neck, looking for exactly the right place to bite them and drain their blood?
Noping right the f out. And yes, I know that was oddly specific.
Giant hairy spiders the size of cars, straight up nightmare fuel. I console myself that they can’t exist here because of the limits of chitin structural strength and oxygen transport systems. Then I remember, genetic engineering is a thing…
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“coos over mice before we feed them off (yes, I have to keep her from naming them, 'cause then they’re pets…)”
Rule #3 on the farm: don’t name food animals, except things like “steaks” “ham” “bacon” “thanksgiving dinner” (all real world examples)
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