I feel bad for posting this because I know there are a number of posts that contain the information I need. I am panicking and don’t have time to read through all the threads to get the answers I need.
I fed my juvenile snakes last night and the first tub that I opened was infested with mites. I’ve had this snake for about 3 months and never had an issue. I did just add a hognose to the same rack but I had quarentined him for about 3 weeks in a separate enclosure in a separate room on paper towel and didn’t notice anything at all.
I immediately tossed the infested substrate and put the infested snake in an extra tub I had away from my other animals. Didn’t notice this until late last night so I couldn’t go buy supplies. I have never had to deal with mites and I don’t know what to do.
I plan to treat all 3 tubs I have in the rack. All of those snakes are very young and under 50 grams. My plan is to treat all of them with a dawn dish soap and water bath. Following that with a natural chemistry reptile mite spray. Then a soak in plain water to rinse and rehydrate. As for treating the tubs I plan to use Rid home bedbug, lice, and dust mite spray. I am not sure how to use this product. Do I spray on and just let it dry? Do I spray it let it dry and then clean out the enclosure again?
I’d appreciate any input. The kingsnake is pretty infested and I feel like such a terrible keeper. This came out of no where. I am out of work at 4:30 and hopefully by then I will have a clear understanding of what I need to do to get rid of these things.
Again sorry for adding another post about mites, I’m just panicking and I don’t have the time to read through all of the forums.
I have thankfully never had to deal with this situation in my collection, but I did work at a pet shop back in the 90’s that had a serious mite problem so I’ll offer the following advice. Getting your snakes clear of mites is of course, priority #1, and not difficult to do. The hard part is eliminating the little suckers from your environment. If your collection is small, the best option is to treat your animals, transfer them directly to clean enclosures, and transport them off-site for a couple weeks. Then treat your entire house VERY thoroughly. This should be sufficient to break the life cycle of the mites and avoids exposing your snakes to pesticides. Be sure to check your animals before moving them home and consider a second treatment before you do so. If moving your snakes somewhere else for a couple weeks is not an option then you might consider at least changing rooms temporarily. Best of luck to you.
The mite treatment spray will have use instructions. I would thoroughly clean and spray all areas, tubs & rack shelves. Let it dry for about 30 mins while you soak. I’d repeat the soaks every few days for a week or 2 until you’re sure they’re gone. What type rack do you have? Melamine/wood will make it more difficult than plastic/metal. It could take 2-3 weeks of repeating to get thru egg cycles depending how bad it is established. Goodluck
Thank you all for the input. below is what I was able to get accomplished tonight. Feel free to read it and offer feedback if you’d like.
Steps on Day One
Tonight I was able to treat the kingsnake. He had it the worst. Gave him a plain water soak first to make sure he was hydrated. Then a soak in dawn dish soap water mix. Cleaned that up and then used natural chemistry reptile spray, just a light misting. While he was soaking in the mite spray I cleaned up a quarantine tank I had laying around. Cleaned it with diluted bleach. Rinsed it with hot water and toweled it dry. Once it no longer smelled like bleach I sprayed the natural chemistry spray on some paper towel and wiped every surface inside and out. Got that set up with heat and moved it out of my reptile room. Kingsnake is now properly isolated and out of the room. Next up was a dawn soak for all the the rack-mates. One at a time, water soak, then dawn soak. While they were in the diluted soap mix I bleached the tubs, rinsed them, dried them, and applied the natural chemistry spray to all surfaces. Lined the tub with paper towel and put the snake back in. Did this for both the corn and the hog that share space on the rack. I kept their assembled tubs out of the reptile room and cleaned the pvc rack with diluted bleach then wiped it down with natural chemistry spray. Let that dry and put the hog and the corn back in the rack. There is nothing in the tubs or the quarantine tank right now. All of the enclosure decor is soaking in hot diluted bleach solution. I am about to pull that stuff out and leave it out over night to air dry. I will repeat the cleaning and soaking every 3 days. I ordered a can of provent a mite to hopefully knock this out sooner rather than later. Sorry for the long winded decription, but I wanted to list what I did incase anyone has a better way. Thanks.
LOL