Battling mites!

[Pink]

Hey team,

I'm in the process of ridding mites from my Darwin and Murray. Yesterday, both enclosures were cleaned and sprayed with Callington Mite Spray, and both snakes have soaked in warm water and betadine.

The enclosures are just newspaper and a couple of new cardboard boxes - the normal decorations are soaking.
I then gave the enclosures another quick spray once the snakes were returned.

Now - I can already see more mites on the snakes. Should I resoak and respray? Or will they die off over the next few days?
The can seems to suggest not to respray within a week.

Cheers!
Pinky,

 

[saximus]

There shouldn't be any live mites left if you've treated everything properly. You will usually need a re-treatment after 10-14 days as that is the incubation period for them but that is a different issue.
Do your snakes have their own room? I fairly recently got rid of them in my collection by putting the snakes into tubs and moving them out then letting off a roach bomb in the snake room. I also sprayed the TOD directly into the tubs with the snakes. Make sure you clean the enclosures properly and throw out everything that is disposable

 

[Pink]

Ah, cheers.
I guess I didn't clean properly the first time then. Might have to start over!

I'm keen to leave them in tubs in the bathroom for a couple of days, but I don't have heating (unless I replace the hotwater bottles every few hours!).

They main enclosures are in the spareroom/study, so I might move the PC and bomb it.

 

[Pink]

Okay, second bath and a second spray and both are in clean tubs with fresh newspaper, and a few hours later I'm still finding mites in their eyes.
(quite a few dead ones on the paper too, though.)

I'm obviously not being thorough enough with the soaking, but I'm trying not to hurt them given they keep pulling away if I hold their heads too long (ie, more than 5 seconds )

 

[andynic07]

I have had no experience with mites but wouldn't you need to soak the entire snake under water for long enough to kill the mites? I would imagine that you would put the snake in a water bath and the snake would hold its head above water leaving the mites in this area alive?

 

[hunterschamps]

I had a problem with mites, the treatment process I went thru is as follows.. First remove all substrate and dispose of this as the little nasties like to hide amongst it, hides, water bowls and anything else that may be in the enclosure. Place the snake back inside the bare enclosure, depending on the size of your tank give it a 2-3 second spray with the "Top of Descent", not directly spraying the snake itself, close all the doors and leave the snake for 2-3 hours. After this time, give your snake a wash in a warm soapy water, eg. washing detergent, i also gave my snake a diluted betadine bath after giving her the soap bath. Once you've done this, put your snake back in the tank. 24 hours after spraying the tank, you can replace the water bowl, this is useful as the snake will try to drown the mites if it still has some remaining on it, also chucking some newspaper down as a temp substrate. You need to repeat the treatment with Top of Decent every 7 days, as this will break the mites breeding circle. This must continue for 3 weeks. It would pay to also soak any hides, branches in water for 24 hours, so do this as soon as you have sprayed with the mite treatment. This method worked perfect for me, and would recommend it to anyone.

 

[hunterschamps]

Also pays to take the snake out after the first 24hour period and give the tank a thorough clean, especially in corners and in the top corners/grooves of the tank.

 

[damian83]

I had a problem with mites, the treatment process I went thru is as follows.. First remove all substrate and dispose of this as the little nasties like to hide amongst it, hides, water bowls and anything else that may be in the enclosure. Place the snake back inside the bare enclosure, depending on the size of your tank give it a 2-3 second spray with the "Top of Descent", not directly spraying the snake itself, close all the doors and leave the snake for 2-3 hours. After this time, give your snake a wash in a warm soapy water, eg. washing detergent, i also gave my snake a diluted betadine bath after giving her the soap bath. Once you've done this, put your snake back in the tank. 24 hours after spraying the tank, you can replace the water bowl, this is useful as the snake will try to drown the mites if it still has some remaining on it, also chucking some newspaper down as a temp substrate. You need to repeat the treatment with Top of Decent every 7 days, as this will break the mites breeding circle. This must continue for 3 weeks. It would pay to also soak any hides, branches in water for 24 hours, so do this as soon as you have sprayed with the mite treatment. This method worked perfect for me, and would recommend it to anyone.

i too did this almost exact way.

betadine and soapy warm water baths in a tub for 5min to an hour depending how long they stay in without stressing

cleared the whole enclosure, cleaned and went back to paper towel as substrate.

i did it for 2 - 3 weeks, every 2 days in the baths and theyre gone

quarantine it from the other reptiles while your doing it

 

[damian83]

I have had no experience with mites but wouldn't you need to soak the entire snake under water for long enough to kill the mites? I would imagine that you would put the snake in a water bath and the snake would hold its head above water leaving the mites in this area alive?

yes but the mites can live around their eyes, mine actually curled up under the water in its bowl head and all under for 10-15 min at a time holding his breath when they started annoying him

 

[andynic07]

yes but the mites can live around their eyes, mine actually curled up under the water in its bowl head and all under for 10-15 min at a time holding his breath when they started annoying him

Is 15 minutes long enough to kill the mites or would it be best to treat chemically.

 

[damian83]

Is 15 minutes long enough to kill the mites or would it be best to treat chemically.

i kept doing it not just a one off, and he left himself under water in his tank, thats how i found the problem

sometimes you have to treat chemically but i tried naturally first