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Mites? I'm not sure...

P

PhiSig787

New member
Two days ago I came home to find both my corns curled up together in their water dish. Yesterday I came home to find my male still curled up in the water dish and my female elsewhere in the cage. Today I took them both out to feed and found little black bugs on my female. Under the scales and just crawling around. My first thought was that they are mites so I went to my herp store to speak with my herp guru and to get some supplies.

My herp guru said they might not be mites and they might be ticks or some other small bug. Regardless I want them gone and am trying to find the easiest and quickest solution. There were roughly 6-8 crawling around my female and I noticed what I am pretty sure are a couple more underneath scales.

They're about the size of a pinhead and black. They're all black and smooth looking... sort of like a miniature beetle. I can't see any protruding legs, they look like small, domed, black, shiny, smooth ovals that move.

I have both my male and my female soaking in a mild soap solution right now so as to kill off anything that is on them and I bought 'De Flea' reptile relief mite and flea killer made by 'Natural Chemistry' which I am going to apply after they've soaked for a little while and been dried. I also removed everything from the tank, threw away the old bedding and am in the process of sterilizing the tank. The two log hideaways I have are going to be baked in the oven for a little while so as to hopefully kill off anything that might be on those and I bought a new water dish because I didn't really like the old one and they could crawl under it and I noticed if they went to the bathroom underneath it I wouldn't notice it until I took the water dish out.

I am going to dry the tank and spray it down with some of the tick/flea killer and then place paper towels as bedding as opposed to more bedding so that I can see if more ticks/mites/? hatch.



Is there any other advice that anyone out there has that would be helpful? I've had my corns for 2 years now and although I am not a "pro" I am learning everyday. My herp guy said that mites shouldn't just appear without the addition of a "dirty" snake or something else I've put into my tank that is "dirty". I haven't added anything to my cage in a while, so I am a little confused as to how they got here and if they are definitely mites.

My female doesn't show any signs of aggrivated skin. There are no sores anywhere. I've read that they like to attack by the eyes and neck cause of the softer tissue that they can bite into easier, but I see no evidence of anything other than the fact that there are little bugs. And my male seems fine, but I presume that's partially because he's soaked himself for the past two days.

I just want to nuke the little bastards and get my girl back to normal. :flames:
 
Without pictures, it is unclear if you have mites or ticks. Either way, treatment is virtually the same, and it appears that you are on the correct path of treatment.

By no means do I want to lecture you on housing snakes together, but if the snakes were housed separately you might only have to deal with the health of one snake instead of two.

On a side note, what type of bedding are you using? Years ago, I had a mite infestation in my ball python's viv, which I traced back to the bark-type bedding that I had bought. I later switched and have no problems with any of my snakes since (knock on wood). Yet I only had to treat one snake and viv, because all of my snakes were housed separately.
 
I was using pine chip bedding, but right now they have paper towel bedding so that I can monitor how they're doing with the presence of the mites. I've found out that they are mites because I squished one and it was full of blood, so I assume that that is the sign of a mite. I soaked both snakes yesterday for about an hour, cleaned them, dried them and applied the mite/flea killer. This morning I woke up to a rather upleasent site, there are probably a dozen or so more mites on or around my snakes. I also applied a little olive oil to my female snake who had the bad mite problem per my herp guys advice. I thoroughly cleaned the tank yesterday, scrubbed it with soap and water, sprayed it down with the mite killer. I baked my one log hideaway in the oven and sprayed it with the killer. I also sprayed there grape vine climbing log with the mite killer.

I guess just how long will I need to do this before I get rid of them? Every reading I read said to soak them and clean them a couple times a week for a couple months but it seems like I am going to need to do it daily at least for a little while to get all the little buggers before they can mate/lay eggs.

Any advice would be welcome.
 
When your mites are gone and you are going to put new substrate in the tank, I would reccomend not using pine. Pine can be toxic to corn snakes. Many people use Aspen bedding, which is similar to what you have been using it is just made from a different type of wood.
 
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