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well, mites dont fly.
the adults are as big as a pin-head, kind of brown and round. if you dont look carefully they can look just like a speck of dirt.
if your python has mites, most likely she will be soaking in her water bowls for hours and hours, trying to drown them. so if you think she has mites,
1. dont fill your waterbowl so thats its too full that she cant coil up in there and rest.
2. check it daily for little specks at the bottom.
also check your snakes body, especially under the head, around the mouth and the abdomen, all the softer areas of skin. (this is where the mites can more easily suck bood)
then if your pretty sure you do have mites, thats where the fun starts. you need to quaruntine your enclosure. do you have other snakes? are their cages nearby the infected. if yes, id be guessing you'll have an ongoing problem of mites moving from one cage to the next if you dont isolate the cage.
a product called 'Top of Decent' is possibly the most easiest to get your hands on and use. its a spray that is used in airplanes to kill off mites and such. at some shops you have to ask for it specifically.
you need to take out the water bowl, and the snake, and spray TOD in the cage, dont need heaps, just enough to see a fine mist floating around, and leave it sealed for a few hours. depending what your substrate is, id suggest taking it out and lay WHITE paper, so you can see how many mites have dropped.
then you need to clean the substrate really well, cos they will be living in there too. heat it in the oven for an hour at 260C, or put it in a sealed garbabge bag, and spray TOD in it, leave overnight. as i said, depending what it is.
then treatement of your snake. if she is a juvi, its not recommended you leave her in the cage after spraying TOD. if she is and adult, then it is ok. you leave her in during the TDO treatment, because this should help to kill any that are living on her too.
if she is a juvi though, you need some help. someone needs to get her calm, hold her and either cover her head (depending how easy-going she is) of keep her head away from the spray. then someone else needs to spray TDO all along her body, concentrating on those softer areas. but be careful, TOD isnt cheap, and you dont need alot of it to be effective.
leave her in a clickclack of box for about 20 minutes or so, again with white paper so you can see if any mites have been killed. sometimes you can see the mites under scales, so have a good look underneath and note where they were.
you will probably need to treat her and the cage again within a week, because of the life-cycle, new eggs will hatch. it really sucks, but 2-3 times of TDO should fix it.
another thing, the mites like hot temperatures to breed in, thats why they always appear in summer, so lowering your temps can help reduce it.
if this doesnt help, another option is contacting a preditory mite distributer. the type of mite you need is a "hypoaspis", put a teaspoon of them in the cage, and they eat the mites. when there are no mites left, they starve and die. very safe for your snake, very effective, but a little expensive, and not a product you can get your hands on quickly or easily. but it is another option, especially if the problem moves to more cages,
hope that speel helped. ive had the problem this season and it is not fun at all. goodluck
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