Mites :(

[Black.Rabbit]

This morning when I got up I noticed one of my diamonds in her water bowl... This arvo when I came home for a minute she was still there, I got her out and had a look and noticed her eyes looked sunken and had an instant feeling she had mites. She had little dots of something around her eyes, poor thing I got home tonight and it looks worse (or maybe I'm just more worried). None of the others appear to have any signs - yet.

I didn't notice anything before this morning but now I think about it, the last couple of days she has been hiding in a fake pot plant every night which is really odd for her.

I'm checking out all the mite threads now, just a couple of questions that I want to clarify:

How far advanced in a mites case is it when you can see them around the eyes?

Should I be taking her to the vet tomorrow (or find a 24 hour vet and take her now) or not worry and just start a mite treatment tomorrow?

This is the worst timing, I have 2 assignments due tomorrow and 3 more due on Friday and I haven't started any. I already knew I had to pull 2 all-nighters in a row, this stacked on top is getting a litte excessive... I wonder if universities accept pet problems as a cause for an extension.

Edit: I know this is another 'omg I have mites' thread, I've used the search function etc and it brings up hundreds of threads, most of which aren't related, I read some of the sticky one but my brain is mush. I can barely keep my eyes open and excessively researching mites and failing this semester or staring my assignments now are my choices over the next few hours.

I'd really appreciate some help asap, I'm so snowed under and I feel like I am going to have a nervous breakdown, the thought of having to stay awake for 48+ hours and then this is ready to push me way over the edge...


so please, help me out with no flames, it wont be constructive.

Cheers, Ellie

 

[pythrulz]

I would say your right about the mites heres a good thread how to get rid of them
Got Mites? its a sticky thread so just put that in the search function

 

[Black.Rabbit]

I already read the thread but it went in through one ear and out the other (so to speak). I'm in no state of mind to read 60+ posts right now...

Just need to know:

Should I just go strait to the vet tomorrow?
When it's on their eyes, does that mean it's a very advanced case or just the beginning?

Poor thing looks so uncomfortable

 

[Crystal..Discus]

All good, those threads are a pain in the ****.

You can take the snake to the vet, but they'll just tell you to quarantine. Soak her in warm water for as long as she can stand, and prepare a tub like the first post of the mites thread.

 

[Black.Rabbit]

All good, those threads are a pain in the ****.

You can take the snake to the vet, but they'll just tell you to quarantine. Soak her in warm water for as long as she can stand, and prepare a tub like the first post of the mites thread.

Thanks, if it's not 100% necessary to take her to the vet I wont... just wasn't sure if it was a vet required issue.

As for quarantine, she shares a double enclosure (divided by a wall) with the other diamond and I'm guessing the likelihood is that he will have them too now... if the mites are that far gone, how likely is it that they will all have them anyway? Am I better off just leaving them where they are now and treating all 6 at the same time?

I don't have any of that mite treatment stuff with me... I'll have to get it tomorrow somehow.. I don't have betadine or anything either, only F10, but I don't think that will help my cause at the moment.

Sucks I have to remove all the wood I have for her to climb on, it took me AGES to find it, strip them of bark, set them up, screw it all into the enclosure etc ....Guess I gotta do what I gotta do

 

[Crystal..Discus]

If she shares a double enclosure you'll need to de-mite that as well. Just to be on the safe side I'd do everything in the room, but I have an inordinate amount of time on my hands these days. :lol: Getting rid of mites isn't easy - they're tenacious little bastards that need to be nuked off the face of the planet.

(The branches are a real pain in the *** though. When my bird had lice, I had to throw out branches that took me days to find.)

 

[Chris]

If you have other snakes you may have to clean everything up if you're like me & you use the same feeding tools etc for all your enclosures.

 

[solar 17]

"Permoxin" approx. $21-24 a bottle from any vet put 40 mls in a plastic bucket, fill it with warm water and dunk your critter in and give him/her a good wash "all over" its even safe enough to "briefly" totally immerse your snake making sure you flush the skin fold under the lower jaw.
This treatment is very safe and "will work 100%"........but with any mite treatment repeat in 11-13 days time to break any gestation cycle.
.............solar 17 (Baden)

 

[Pythoninfinite]

Remove the snakes from their enclosures and treat them separately as suggested by solar 17 (no need to take them to a vet), remove waterbowls and place in hot water (while in the room the snakes are in to prevent them dropping off elsewhere in the house), open the enclosures fully, leaving all cage furnishings and substrate in place, and then bomb the (closed) room with a Mortein Flea and Roach bomb. Keep closed for 4 hours, then ventilate the room, remove all substrate and dispose of it. The cage furnishings will be fine to leave in place.

This will kill all mites in the entire room, and the insect growth-retardant residue the bombs leave behind (a hormone-based growth retardant) after the first 'knockdown' (synthetic pyrethrum) is not harmful in any way to your snakes. It simply prevents any newly hatched mites from going through their lifecycle changes.

You can put the snakes back as soon as you like after these steps are taken.

Jamie

 

[snakehandler]

Order a can of Top of Decent, remove the water bowl and leave the snake in the enclosure, spray the TOD for a few seconds and leave closed then for 24hrs. Treat again every 2 weeks for a period of 6-8 weeks, this will get rid of the mites and due to the fact there will be eggs which take about 12-14 days to hatch, then you need to retreat as above. Its not a big hassle and takes only a few seconds every 2 weeks to sort out.

 

[Black.Rabbit]

I'd been at uni all day, so was only able to read this thread just now. On the way home I picked up Mac Mite Insecticide for the enclosure and Aristopet Repti-Guard Mite Spray. The reptile lady at the pet shop said that they used to stock all other brands but found that people preferred those products the best... Anyway, I cleared out the entire enclosure and replaced it with odd bits and pieces I found from Bunnings.

Her enclosure before:

After :

I have 3 assignments due tomorrow and a presentation to give at 9am and have barely started, so will sort the other snakes out tomorrow arvo. Treated her as she is the only one showing signs at the moment, I will treat the others when I can. I'll probably get flamed for that but I'm under so much pressure.

Dr Jekyll is 100 times more active, probably just curious about the furniture change.. she seems a lot more active already.

Thanks for the replies, I will take on as much as I can tomorrow when I'm not drowning under an ocean of paperwork and wordcounts!

 

[shea_and_ruby]

best of luck with your uni work tonight. i am doing an acclerated post grad masters, so i know how it feels. hope you're not too shattered tomorrow for your presentation!

 

[Bluetongue1]

How did things turn out for you?

Blue

 

[Black.Rabbit]

Thanks for asking Blue

I cleaned out all the enclosures, sprayed them all etc... I fed them all on Saturday night and the bredli, pygmy and spotted all refused which is a first, especially for the bredli. I can't see any mites on the others except for the diamond that had them in the beginning and I can still see some on her eyes. I sprayed her again today... Should they have gone from her eye by now??

and a quick question about all the wood... I put it all in my garage, if I leave it in there long enough, is there a time when it would be safe for it all to be replaced back into the enclosures? (say... after a couple of months or something)?

 

[Bluetongue1]

I am wondering about how effective the spray you have utilised is as well as how appropriate the mite guard is. The unfortunate reality is that there are a lot of items on the market that are either safe but not 100% effective or are very effective but not safe to use with reptiles. You were under immense time pressure and needed a quick resolution. I have no idea how the pet shop found those products to be the most preferred by their customers because they don’t rank amongst the preferred treatments of experienced snake keepers. What Solar 17 and Pythoninfinite suggested is probably the cheapest, effective method to get rid of snake mite safely. Snakehandler’s suggest is also effective and very convenient but more expensive and you need to spray twice to get rid of hatching eggs. TOD is what they spray in planes from overseas, but after you land rather than as the name suggests, as you are about to descend.

So where to from here?

Firstly, I would purchase some Permoxin and a couple of Mortein Roach and Flea Bombs. Then I would follow the directions given by Sola 17 and Pythoninfinite, as if I had done nothing with the snakes to date. Bomb the reptile room and the garage / wood pile. While you are bombing, keep the snakes in clean bags in small clean plastic containers, somewhere cosy inside the house and well away from the reptile room. Snake mites are highly mobile despite their small size. Females will travel quite a few metres to lay their eggs. This is why the Roach and Flea Bombs are effective in eliminating potential sources of reinfestation, whereas hand directed spraying uses a lot more to thoroughly cover the same area.

Secondly I would be telling the pet shop that the spray has not killed all mites and that either the spray or the Mac Mite for the enclosures seems to have put the animals off their food. There are other effective treatments available, such as Frontline and Ivermectin and others. These require a good understanding of dosage and in the end are no more effective than what has been suggested. So don’t let someone talk you into something else. The above provides the simplest and safest method for effectively eliminating mite.

The last thing is to work out how they were introduced into your collection. Was another snake (or lizard – a very unlikely vector for snake mite, but an outside possibility) brought into the house. Had you been handing snakes belonging to someone else prior to coming home and going to your reptiles? Did you add anything new to the enclosure over the past couple of weeks and if so, where did it come from? Did you spend time at the pet shop window shopping at the snake enclosures? ....

Have fun nuking the pernicious little blood suckers!

Blue