My good luck has come to the end

[luke.B]

i always know it would happen someday, but all the years that i have been keeping herp i have never had mites. wen i got back home from work the other day. i was looking some of the baby's over and found some. so far it has just been in one tank, but that tank was in my snake room so we will see. i got so provent-a-mite on the way so hopefully i will get it taken care of before it get bad. like some of the horror story's i have heard about them.

[EasternGirl]

You have to be very careful with provent-a-mite. It is really the only way to get rid of the mites...but if you use it wrong, you can kill snakes with it. Talk to Steve...he knows a lot about mites and using provent-a-mite. He can tell you exactly what to do. Best of luck to you.

[guidofatherof5]

http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/husbandry/9493-provent-mite-usage.html

[sirtalis01]

o NO mites could kill your snake if not taken care of soon.....a few years ago i met a guy that had an infestation he told me that the only way he got rid of the mites was buying flea collars for dogs he cut them in pieces and put a piece on each tub and good size piece on each corner of the room.....i tryed it onece and it worked.

[i_heart_sneakie_snakes]

Where do they come from?? Does your snake have to have been exposed to an infected snake, or can they just appear??

[guidofatherof5]

Transferred from snake to snake or infected bedding.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Mites SUCK. But you got the right thing! Provent a mite when used PROPERLY (follow the instruction exactly) is a very safe product. It's when people misuse it that it causes harm. Used right provent a mite is 100% effective and there is no need for those crappy sprays you buy at the pet store or any of the home remedies cooked up by various herpers trying to save a buck. Flea collars are a BIG no-no, they contain a concentrated amount of toxins that slowly vaporize into the air and to be honest I would never even use one on a dog or in my home! Let alone in close proximity to a snake! Especially such small snakes as garters are. Snake Mites do not appear out of thin air and they do not come from the bag of bedding you just bought... They can't just lay around and wait for a snake, they must feed and their life cycle revolves around having a host. Snake mites can only survive if they have a host to feed off of. They had to have come in on one of your newest additions, or you went to a show or a pet store where there were mites and one hitch hiked home on your clothing. They came from someone else with mites... there ARE types of mites that can come in bedding, especially mulch type beddings, but they are not harmful and do not infest the snake, they merely live in the dirt and feed on waste. The only other option out there to safely and effectively eradicate the mites would be to order yourself some predatory mites. This is a chemical free route, these mites crawl around and hunt and eat the other mites. When the snake mites are all gone they will eat each other and then starve. You do have to provide a moist area for them to retreat and breed though. All in all provent a mite is a great option. I have had to deal with mites twice and I will say this. Never again!!! The first time I was young and had no idea they even existed. The second time, I am not sure, if I carried them from a show or what. Regardless nothing ever enters the snake room until it has been in a quarantine tub in the dining room with substrate treated with provent a mite and it has fed and pooped normal poops. My larger snakes such as carpet pythons and what not I will quarantine for months! And anyone that handles my snakes at a show uses my hand sanitized before touching them in hopes that if they did touch any other snakes any possible mites will be drowned. It saves you a lot of headache in the long run especially when it comes to these little black evil creatures!!

[ConcinusMan]

o NO mites could kill your snake if not taken care of soon.....a few years ago i met a guy that had an infestation he told me that the only way he got rid of the mites was buying flea collars for dogs he cut them in pieces and put a piece on each tub and good size piece on each corner of the room.....i tryed it onece and it worked.

Worked for me too. I put the pieces in the enclosure where the animals couldn't reach them. It was spiny lizards with ticks, not snakes and mites. But it did work and didn't seem to harm the lizards.

[luke.B]

OK i am going crazy here i got the Pro-vent a mite about a week ago and tread how it said to even wanted 48 hr before i put them back in the only thing i can think of that i might have done wrong was maybe sprayed a little to much but it has been about 4 days that have been back in there tanks and last night all the cb11 started acting crazy and i lost a few of them the rest i ended up giving them a bath and putting them under a heat lamp and the rest of them ending up making it then the adulates started doing it to day so i took them out of burmation which i hated to do but the way they were acting i did not want to take any chances but it seams like all of them are doing ok now i just dont know y it happened they were doing so good any one have any thought i dont know what to do here

[EasternGirl]

You followed the directions exactly? I have no experience using it...Shannon and Steve do...you may want to PM one of them. guidofatherof5 or aSnakeLovinBabe.

[ConcinusMan]

Babies are known to have bad reactions to chemical residue/odor. Even very little of it. I've seen them "spaz out" after being put in plastic containers that once had bleach in it even though the containers were rinsed thoroughly. One possibility is that the snakes had mites on them, and the mites "spazzed out" causing them to do the same. I know that dogs do this when the fleas on them react to products such as Frontline. You say you lost some? Does that mean they died? Must have put them back too soon and they got poisoned. Like I said, babies are much more sensitive than adults.