dust mites or snake mites?

[ianyork]

can dust mites etc make home in your vivs? seen a few creepy crawlies (ie mini mini mini minute), scoured the snakes all over and cant see any mites on them? only place ive seen them is under bernies hide at the cool end, no where else! checked smoows cage as well and nada in there!

as a precaution im going to spray them with 1 cal olive oil, when i do this do i do the head (ie near the eyes and mouth??) plus i think both are about to shed to make things more interesting thing is i always put substrate, new objects etc in boiling water with a disinfectant added, hence why i have no idea how these little gits have got in if they are snake mites

[welshgaz]

Unfortunatley mites happen to everyone at some stage.. frontlines the best but I have heard Olive Oil can do some damage - you might want to check that one!

[davebehave]

i used cheap morrisons cooking oil on my cornsnake when she had mites and the only problem i had was cleaning up the oil after wards .

[ianyork]

well ive applied some to bernie (wasnt to impressed) but smoow is in the blue, should i apply it to her as well or just allow her to shed?

how many times should i apply the oil?

[Andy]

I would make sure you have mites first! You would notice them crawling on the snake particulaly round the head i.e. eyes nostrils etc. They will be black and when you crush them you will see blood. There really is no point treating your snakes unless you are sure they have them. Oh and the water bowl is a good place to look if a snake has mites 9 times out of ten he will soak in the water bowl.

[ianyork]

thats the thing havnt seen any on him, neither any in the waterbowl and the ones i have squished dont appear to have any blood spurt out that i could see! these are brown and seriously small hence why i suspected them to be dust mites but was not sure!??only place ive seen them is the hide in the cool end

bernie wont like me for what i did to him if it wasnt needed

[Andy]

I would hazard a guess and say they are more than likely the little bugs you get in the wood chip sometimes. I have had a mit eproblem twice now and it really is obvious when they have them. You cant really mistake them for anything else as they literally crawl all over you snakes. Especially if you have light snakes they would show up pretty well. One day your snake looks fine next they are in the water bowl crawling with mites it doesn't take long for them to multiply. But if you cant find any on the snakes and they aren't soaking themselves I wouldn't worry....yet!

[ianyork]

cool, thats good then, thought id better be safe than sorry! and ill keep a close eye on them, just didnt want to pass any over to their new homes!

cheers for the advice

[Andy]

No problems if you do ever have mites Frontline works a treat just a little spray on a cloth then wipe over the snake from top to bottom then a couple of days later the mites are gone.

[ianyork]

cool, kitty can donate some of his