Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Dracowoman2]

Ok, I know everyone feels the same way about mites as I do, nasty useless orrid things, but here's a twist to the story. There has often been mention of people getting infestations of mites from their aspen bedding and other substrates, but I've got a nasty bout of the beggars that arrived in the bug grub that I use to gut load my meal worms for my geckos!! I was in the rep room last night having spent the weekend throwing out every trace of aspen disinfecting and scrubbing every snake tub and then soaking the snakes over night on Sunday night to drown the blighters only to look up to the shelf when I keep the 9L rub of bug grub and thinking to myself that I needed to move it out of the room, when blow me if the patch of dust that was in front of the tub didn't start walking about all over the place!! Not adults as these are a cream colour, tried to photograph them but even with supermacro and through a jewellers loop they are too small. immediately grabbed a bucket of hot water and disinfectant and started scrubbing the shelf off. Anyway, later on looked up again and they were actually running about inside the rub with the bug grub in Not ordering from that supplier again, when I can remember which one I tried out last time

So I am now down 4 large bags of bug grub, a can of provent-a-mite which terrifies me, and several non feeding snakes, probably due to the bleeping mites!! The moral of this story, be warned, the beggers come in all sorts of stuff, not just your aspen!! We're now back to good old cheap and messy newspaper as I'm not going through the beggers hiding in the aspen again and getting cozy under the water bowls where it gets nice and warm and humid just how the females like it for egg laying

My primary concern is how to treat my gravid female? Don't really want to use the provent-a-mite on her newspaper although I will only use it on the middle sheet of 3 sheets of paper anyway, don't like the idea of killing mites with neurotoxin and endangering my snakes, but I don't like the idea of soaking her overnight too often either as she is potentially due on the 16th July and don't want to upset or cool her. I've ordered some mite-off as well which should have arrived today had the damn courier been bothered to deliver!!

Suggestions on a postcard, and apologies for the rambling
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www.draco2.co.uk

"Life without animals isn't life, they give much and take little"

Claire

[lol93]

http://www.defenders.co.uk/pest-solutions/biological-sciarid-fly-control.html

I believe these little fellas do the trick, Sue, but I've never used 'em myself. Might be worth trying as a natural remedy for your gravid female.
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[Python-Regius]

Hi Claire,
I would try and sit on your hands with your gravid female until she lays on the 16th. Once the eggs are secure in the incubator then you can treat her.

We treat all our new snakes with Frontline spray from the vet. A squirt for a small snake and 3 or 4 for a whopper, then rub it over the body of the snake and pop it back in its tub. Then it is just down to the usual cleaning out and sterilising. Its worth repeating the procedure in 2 or 3 weeks to deal with any hatching eggs, but that should be them gone!

We too also found mites in Aspen, so started using a piece of corrugated cardboard, bought in a 50mtr roll from Staples for about £17, and cutting it to the size of the base of the tub/box. It looks better than newspaper with no ink coming off it when it gets damp, plus no mites!

Hope that helps,
Tony & Becky

[bumblebee]

if you do decided to use teh frontline, don't leave your waterbowls in the tubs!!!! there's another cure that works really wel and it's about 60% less poisonos than frontline. go to your pharmacist and ask him for lice shampoo, that will contain 10% of permetrin. 1 bottle is mixed with 4 litres warm (not hot) water and spray your tubs with it!! throw everything in the tub out, give the snakes a good swim around for 30 minutes then put them in the tub. repeat this in 10 days and again in another 10 days! works a charme, but make sure you get the one with the permetrine!!! or see if you can find a website where you can order "dutchy;s" also know as army mites (i think thats the translation) those are mites that eat every other type of mite including the ones in your tub or viv. after the mites are finished the dutchy's just eat themselves and whatever's left will die

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1.1 Hypo Salmon Boa (Gee Line)
0.1 Boa C.I. Orange
1.0 Boa Coral Albino (Kahl)
0.5 Royal Python
0.1 Royal Python Spider
1.0 Royal Python Jungle Pastel (Graziani)
1.0 Royal Python Mojave
0.2 Royal Python Labyrinth

[Dracowoman2]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I'd read about the defenders mite thingies, I know someone who used them to treat a retic with mites and they didn't work, but apparently you have to keep them a certain way in the cages or they don't do their job, but I rather like the idea, firstly from a natural approach with no chemicals and secondly from the sheer revenge approach, I have a really nice image of these little things marching about with the equivalent of machine guns going after the snake mites

Bumblebee, I know all about the lice shampoo from the days of treating the kids for creepy crawlies Sadly all it ever did for my daughters issue was flare her asthma up, in the end I resorted to a semi natural approach, short back and sides and lather conditioner onto dry hair for an hour, suffocates the little beggers Permethrin apparently is a neuro-toxin (think germ warfare) and that's what worries me about the provent-a-mite as it contains 50% of the stuff so the lice shampoo would be a less worrying approach.

I'm going to take your advice guys and leave the gravid female alone as much as possible and as soon as she has dropped the clutch I'll treat her accordingly. In the meantime I'll keep checking her over as best I can without upsetting her, as all she wants to do at the moment is get out of her tub anyway, so it will give me an opportunity to run her through some warm damp kitchen roll on her way out
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www.draco2.co.uk

"Life without animals isn't life, they give much and take little"

Claire

[Godzilla]

i have used the hypoaspis mites twice in the past . for corns and royals . i scrubbed every thing down and disenfected , switched to newspaper and basic tub set up , gave them all a good soaking and popped the hypoaspis in when they arrived and it worked a treat for me .

suppose its worth a go , mites are such a pain in the a **e ,anything not harmful is worth checkin out . good luck getting rid of the little pests
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0.3.0 beardies Cheech II, Chong , Melody RIP Cheech I { 9/4/08}
2.7.0 albino royal
1.1.0 fireball royal
1.0.0 pastel royal
1.0.0 spider royal
oodles of normal royals

[Dracowoman2]

Thanks godzilla, how many do you add to a tub of the Hypoaspis? Another interesting thing I noticed on the Defenders site that may or may not be feasible is the eradicoat, it's designed to spray plants with but it is formulated from plant oils all natural, mite (sorry couldn't resist) be worth looking into, I wouldn't mind my snakes swimming about in that either.

I swear by a lot of the herbal remadies for myself, even out breeder rodents get fed probiotic once a week to make sure they are nice and healthy when producing young, and they get yogurt as well I would certainly rather go the natural route if possible don't like chemicals at all and only as a last resort. I might try the provent-a-mite on newspaper (sprayed outside) and put the newspaper on the floor around the racks etc rather than in the tubs, or down the sides of the tubs so the little buggers can't spread from tub to tub that way the snakes won't actually come into contact with it. I know snake skin is made up of Keratin which is a primary ingredient of bone, but I've seen what the stuff you put on kids heads does to the skin and is only left for a short time, so them rubbing against treated newspaper I'm not too sure about with the long term effects
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www.draco2.co.uk

"Life without animals isn't life, they give much and take little"

Claire

[bumblebee]

the lice shampoo that we buy over here is calles loxazol, and it contains 10% permetrine and not 50%. but you are rite, it isa poison. but i have used it on my snakes and was rid of themites after the 1rst time using it and it never came back. still caution is always necessary when working with chemicals
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1.1 Hypo Salmon Boa (Gee Line)
0.1 Boa C.I. Orange
1.0 Boa Coral Albino (Kahl)
0.5 Royal Python
0.1 Royal Python Spider
1.0 Royal Python Jungle Pastel (Graziani)
1.0 Royal Python Mojave
0.2 Royal Python Labyrinth

[Alex Thomas]

I had a bad infestation of the dreaded mites several months ago due either to the aspen i was using or a new snake i had aquired so i scrubbed and disinfected the tubs,bowls and hides and changed the bedding to white kitchen roll,(great for spotting mites).Then on the advice of a friend who has alot of experience with royals i frontl-lined the lot from the smallest to the biggest then repeated again a few weeks later with no ill effects.It killed off all the mites and the snakes all started eating again which was a relief.

[jamie_s]

i dont have anything majorly constuctive to say on the matter other than anyone who knowingly sells or gives someone a snake that is infected with mites deserves serious pain mites are a total pain and why some people decide that they arent really a problem so ignore them in their collection is beyond me!!! good luck clearing your collection up claire mate
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www.jamieswordsreptiles.com