# Dealing with Mites in outdoor pits



## Great Dane (Jan 1, 2020)

Hi! I’ve recently had 3 of my blotches blue tongues who have been housed in an outdoor pit contract mites! I’ve pulled them inside for treatment but I just wanted some opinions on what can be done to the pit? I’ve heard of people just wiping frontline spray on the lizards for protection every couple of months. Is there anyway you can treat an outdoor pit for mites?
Ive swapped out all the mulch, but I’m using the same pieces of wood/bark. 

thanks!


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## CF Constrictor (Jan 23, 2020)

I would replace everything in the pit and leave it unused for a couple of weeks just to be sure any mite eggs left behind dont find a meal when they hatch. I would not recomend using chemicals on the animals themselves , but have had great success treating pythons with vegetable oil. Just wipe a thin layer onto them and keep them in a click clack with white paper on the floor and a water bowel for a few days. When the mites try to attach to a host they can't, and become covered in oil then suffocate. Vegetable oil is non toxic and will not harm your lizards and they will look nice and shiny to boot.


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## Sdaji (Jan 23, 2020)

You'll probably need 'chemicals'. Vegetable oil is a chemical by the way, so is water, but you'll probably need a poison to completely kill them. Things like vegetable oil have a chemical action which makes it difficult for mites to cling to a reptile and it can drown them, but unlike some of the poison options it is a liquid which only affects the mites it touches. Many people use oil, feel happy because with the majority of mites gone they assume they are all gone, but some months later the few remaining mites form a new colony. If you only have a small number of reptiles and you repeatedly use oil for long enough it might work, but if you have a larger collection it will be impossible.

The good news about the pit is that you don't need to treat it. Reptile mites have no diapause, so as long as there are no live reptiles in the pit they will all die within a month (leave it a bit longer if you can to be sure). If you do have wild reptiles with mites in the area you may not be able to keep the pit mite free and you'll have to go for a management rather than eradication strategy (which would probably be a dealbreaker for me).


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## CF Constrictor (Jan 23, 2020)

I only discovered the oil method several years ago when a friend of mine was hospitalized for several weeks and asked me to keep an eye on his snakes (8 carpets from juv to aduld, 1 yearling woma and 1 childrens python) . On my first visit i discovered they were all mite infested and the young woma apeared to have a respiratory infection. I took the woma to my local Vet who prescribed Fortum injections. I then started studying up on snake mites and came across an old treatment surposedly used by zoos or reptile parks in the past that involved covering the animals in vegetable oil . I have never had mites on any of my snakes, but never liked the idea of exposing them to "TOXIC CHEMICALS" i should have said Sdaji , if i ever did so i decided to give the oil a try. At the time old mate was hospitalized he was in the process of decking out his garage and building new enclosures for them so he already had them set up in temporary plastic tub homes in his laundry. At first i tried soaking each one in warm water with a little dishwashing liquid as it lowers the suface tension of the water and prevents any attached mites from trapping air bubbles to breath , and sure enough it seemed to help , in the short tem anyway. The next day after consulting my Vet i covered them all by hand in canola oil . Not only did they look nice and shiny , when i returned the next day i could clearly see dead and dieing mites in the bottom of the tubs. It seems that when they come in contact with the oil , there finnished. I only had to apply it once and cleaned out there tubs every day for a week. One of the carpets was a juv albino darwin and the mites were easy to see on him as they seemed to gathered mainly around his neck , labial pits and under his chin. Meanwhile i used Anti mite spray (can't recal the brand) to treat the laundry they were kept in by basicaly chemical bombing the room then sealing it up for 2 days then repeating the process again , to get any eggs that hatched after the first attack. I spent a lot of time working on old mates snakes and didn't want to spread the damn things to my 3, so every time i finnished working on them i would shower and put all the clothes i was wearing in the wash. Fortunately mine were not effected but i know just what to do now if they ever do get mites . Old mate was released from hospital after about 3 weeks and resumed care of his snakes. To this day as far as im aware he has had no issues with mites since.


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## Sdaji (Jan 24, 2020)

CF Constrictor said:


> I only discovered the oil method several years ago when a friend of mine was hospitalized for several weeks and asked me to keep an eye on his snakes (8 carpets from juv to aduld, 1 yearling woma and 1 childrens python) . On my first visit i discovered they were all mite infested and the young woma apeared to have a respiratory infection. I took the woma to my local Vet who prescribed Fortum injections. I then started studying up on snake mites and came across an old treatment surposedly used by zoos or reptile parks in the past that involved covering the animals in vegetable oil . I have never had mites on any of my snakes, but never liked the idea of exposing them to "TOXIC CHEMICALS" i should have said Sdaji , if i ever did so i decided to give the oil a try. At the time old mate was hospitalized he was in the process of decking out his garage and building new enclosures for them so he already had them set up in temporary plastic tub homes in his laundry. At first i tried soaking each one in warm water with a little dishwashing liquid as it lowers the suface tension of the water and prevents any attached mites from trapping air bubbles to breath , and sure enough it seemed to help , in the short tem anyway. The next day after consulting my Vet i covered them all by hand in canola oil . Not only did they look nice and shiny , when i returned the next day i could clearly see dead and dieing mites in the bottom of the tubs. It seems that when they come in contact with the oil , there finnished. I only had to apply it once and cleaned out there tubs every day for a week. One of the carpets was a juv albino darwin and the mites were easy to see on him as they seemed to gathered mainly around his neck , labial pits and under his chin. Meanwhile i used Anti mite spray (can't recal the brand) to treat the laundry they were kept in by basicaly chemical bombing the room then sealing it up for 2 days then repeating the process again , to get any eggs that hatched after the first attack. I spent a lot of time working on old mates snakes and didn't want to spread the damn things to my 3, so every time i finnished working on them i would shower and put all the clothes i was wearing in the wash. Fortunately mine were not effected but i know just what to do now if they ever do get mites . Old mate was released from hospital after about 3 weeks and resumed care of his snakes. To this day as far as im aware he has had no issues with mites since.



Adding soap/detergent to the water gives it the same chemical properties as oil, at least as far as the mites are concerned. Yes, absolutely, you will kill mites either way with these methods but alone they won't eradicate the mites (unless you do it very often for a long time and only have a very small collection). As you now admit, you also used a poison. That alone would have worked. The oil alone won't.

Incidentally, if the reptile chooses to soak itself as many mite-infested reptiles do, it gives plain water the chance to do the same job as oil or water with detergent, and people commonly find drowned mites in water bowls. As we know, this alone doesn't eliminate mites, ir just kills some of them.


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## CF Constrictor (Jan 26, 2020)

Yes , of course i used chemicals , i was not suggesting you don't need them , you do , im just not keen on exposing my animals to them directly so i prefer the oil method to treat the animals themselves.


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