Treating lace monitors for ticks

[Ajar5]

Hi I do not normally post here but thought I might have some useful suggestions you might think about. I am an entomologist by profession working in the Government and privately for near 30 years and was responsible developing the integrated mite management strategy for the papaya industry here in Australia so have spent many years directly researching mite management in Agriculture. What I can tell you is this as I do not know all the specifics to your situation so I cannot really provide direct advice to you but I will provide some general dot points below which might be useful.

Suggestions for treating mite outbreaks

1. Many insecticides do not work on mites you will need to use a miticide

2. Many insecticides are either toxic stomach poisons and need to be ingested to be effective or contact nerve poisons (don't use them on your pet).
I would not be spraying your pet directly with an insecticide the symptoms you described of your pet having spasms and twitching violently sound like the effects of nerve poisoning from the insecticide you used. Don't do this again you could end of killing it or making it seriously sick eventually leading to death. Spraying an insecticide on a reptile will be absorbed through the reptiles skin and can kill them!

3. You will need to take everything out of your enclosure and treat everything in the enclosure and everything that goes in the enclosure with a miticide as well as everything around the outside of the enclosure that could be a source of mite infestation.

4. Have another temp clean enclosure you can use for about a week while your main enclosure is being treated with the miticide.

5. Mites can also be controlled with alternative safer treatments directly applied to your pet as oil plant based treatment. These work by suffocating the mites (product example here). I have worked extensively with these natural products and they are very effective (general info on oil based treatments). I think something like these for treating your pet would be a safer option but still need to be used sparingly and cautiously. I know the chemistry of most insecticides and they can be very toxic to animals and reptiles. I would never treat my lace monitors with an insecticide.

6. You will need to get yourself a hand lens (example here) or something similar to check your pet for any signs of mites around 7-10 days after your have done everything above for more mites.

7. If there is more mites present you will need to repeat the above. You may get rid of the infestation after the first treatment but you may need to repeat with follow up treatments of the enclosure and your pet until the infestation is eliminated then be vigilant to make sure the re-infestation does not happen again and continue.

8. Mites have a very short life-cycle depending in the species and build up large population quickly so make sure you give regular checks of your pets. Try and locate the infestation source. It may have come from somewhere where your enclosure is or from the pets food source.

.........................

Well hope this is helpful. This is my first post here. We have three large lace monitors that have just turned 3 years old

Let me know how you go.

Hi I do not normally post here but thought I might have some useful suggestions you might think about. I am an entomologist by profession working in the Government and privately for near 30 years and was responsible developing the integrated mite management strategy for the papaya industry here in Australia so have spent many years directly researching mite management in Agriculture. What I can tell you is this as I do not know all the specifics to your situation so I cannot really provide direct advice to you but I will provide some general dot points below which might be useful.

Suggestions for treating mite outbreaks

1. Many insecticides do not work on mites you will need to use a miticide

2. Many insecticides are either toxic stomach poisons and need to be ingested to be effective or contact nerve poisons (don't use them on your pet).
I would not be spraying your pet directly with an insecticide the symptoms you described of your pet having spasms and twitching violently sound like the effects of nerve poisoning from the insecticide you used. Don't do this again you could end of killing it or making it seriously sick eventually leading to death. Spraying an insecticide on a reptile will be absorbed through the reptiles skin and can kill them!

3. You will need to take everything out of your enclosure and treat everything in the enclosure and everything that goes in the enclosure with a miticide as well as everything around the outside of the enclosure that could be a source of mite infestation.

4. Have another temp clean enclosure you can use for about a week while your main enclosure is being treated with the miticide.

5. Mites can also be controlled with alternative safer treatments directly applied to your pet as oil plant based treatment. These work by suffocating the mites (product example here). I have worked extensively with these natural products and they are very effective (general info on oil based treatments). I think something like these for treating your pet would be a safer option but still need to be used sparingly and cautiously. I know the chemistry of most insecticides and they can be very toxic to animals and reptiles. I would never treat my lace monitors with an insecticide.

6. You will need to get yourself a hand lens (example here) or something similar to check your pet for any signs of mites around 7-10 days after your have done everything above for more mites.

7. If there is more mites present you will need to repeat the above. You may get rid of the infestation after the first treatment but you may need to repeat with follow up treatments of the enclosure and your pet until the infestation is eliminated then be vigilant to make sure the re-infestation does not happen again and continue.

8. Mites have a very short life-cycle depending in the species and build up large population quickly so make sure you give regular checks of your pets. Try and locate the infestation source. It may have come from somewhere where your enclosure is or from the pets food source.

.........................

Well hope this is helpful. This is my first post here. We have three large lace monitors that have just turned 3 years old

Let me know how you go.

Some great info here, thanks for sharing. Sorry if I shouldn't post here. I also have 3 large laceys and am curious how you would recommend treating ticks. I have done it manually with tweezers. And by dabbing products directly on the ticks with cotton tips. Both methods are difficult and was curious if there's a more practical method? I've also sprayed around the cage and whole yard with insecticide. I know they live with them naturally. But can't stand to see them and it's concerning when there's dogs in the yard also. I'm not a fan of giving animals these synthetic products to ingest or wipe into their skin. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Would eco oil work on ticks?