Mites?

I just noticed that one of my babies has mites... How do I get rid of them?

they have a spray you can get from petco or petsmart called mite off that you spay on the snake and wipethe whole length of the body. and use a bleach solution on the incloser . if you gotta go cheap bath your snakes in dawnsoap and water for atleast 10 minutes everyday. still clean the tank with bleach water .and do this until there are not more mites... i got a snake that had mites and it had spread to the other snakes that were 10 and 15 feet away from his incloser. so i did the soap and water trick and bleach for a week then got the mite off cause it works faster

PAM-Provent a Mite. You can order it online.

Is he isolated from your other snakes?

You will hear people recommend the Nix mite treatment. It works great for adults, but even cut in half, as some people do, it's too strong for hatchlings. I would NOT use it on any snake under a year old. It would be great for enclosures and the walls and floors and carpets surrounding them, for adult snakes.

PAM...treats and prevents!

I got a ball python that had mites before and I used Mineral oil on a rag and ran him thru it a few times then with a wet rag I washed him off put him in a clean bin with paper towels and the next day all the mites had come off and were dead on the paper towel. I repeated the same thing a few days later and no more mites. I did the same thing to all my snakes just to make sure that none got to them and luckily had none thats why a seperate room for new snakes is a must so if you get one with mites it dont get to your whole collection. Good luck.

Third vote for PAM here! Stuff is amazing!

Like Taxman, I have had a good experience with just one or two treatments with vegetable oil controlling mites.

Which ever treatments you try, good luck getting rid of them quickly and safely.

You will need to continue treatments for a few weeks, because of the egg cycles.
What I did, since I use newpaper & paper towels, is I treated several sheets of newspaper & paper towels, both sides, let them dry, & then I used them when I would change out the papers when needed, for 4-5 weeks, & that took care of it.

Is PAM safe for hatchlings? I am going to order it if so.

OKay so the ones that I noticed that had mites I went ahead and did the vegi oil thing and I poured boiling water over all the decorations and enclosure.
I also put them on paper towels. I am going keep everyone on paper towels untill i get the PAM.

BSLMichael said:

Is PAM safe for hatchlings? I am going to order it if so.

Click to expand...

PAM and Nix use the same active ingredient, Permethrin. It is a pyrethroid contact insecticide. Personally I would spray a paper towel and use that to wipe down the snake, then another wipe with plain water to rinse off any residue. Permethrin is only toxic in low volumes if ingested by a reptile, and is not absorbed through the skin. The Nix solution and PAM also have about the same dilution. Just the thoughts of someone who works with pyrethroid insecticides every day.

Snakewhisperer said:

PAM and Nix use the same active ingredient, Permethrin. It is a pyrethroid contact insecticide. Personally I would spray a paper towel and use that to wipe down the snake, then another wipe with plain water to rinse off any residue. Permethrin is only toxic in low volumes if ingested by a reptile, and is not absorbed through the skin. The Nix solution and PAM also have about the same dilution. Just the thoughts of someone who works with pyrethroid insecticides every day.

Click to expand...

No, no it absolutely is not the same active ingredient. Not to mention, what are the inert ingredients?

I recently emailed the makers of Provent A Mite and they brought up some really good points.Purple is me, Blue is Bob from Pro Products

Hello there,

I am wondering about your product, Provent-A-Mite.

In the reptile world there is always so much speculation about why PAM is not readily available in Canada. I have heard rumors that it's because the bottle doesn't have a French label. Can you confirm or deny this?

Also many people believe that the lice shampoo "Nix" uses the same active ingredient. From my understanding, "Permethrin" is simply a family of pesticides, a broad name in much the same way that facial tissue is called "Kleenex." Can you also shed some light on this?

Thanks so much!

Click to expand...

Hi Katia,



Regarding the active in any product, we are only required to list the generic name of the active. You are correct that there are many different technicals of our active. Since the cis-trans ratio is different with each technical, the toxicity can vary widely. In addition to the active, there are many other chemicals in a formula that are not listed. Many common "inerts" in other formulas are toxic to reptiles. Since the product is only tested and approved for the uses stated on the label, a product that is designed to kill insects or arthropods on a plant or even on a person do not have to provide any documentation that the formula would be safe to use with reptiles. Since other formulas are labeled for use with crops, inanimate objects or mammals which have a very high tolerance toward even the most toxic cis-trans ratios available, labeled uses are not an issue. These formulas are also cheaper and the higher toxicities more effective in killing the stated pests for labeled uses, so make up the vast majority of products sold.



Another fact people are not aware of is that a company can submit several different alternate formulas during the initial approval process of the master label. Once all of the alternate formulas are approved for the labeled uses, the company can change these formulas whenever they want. This is a common practice and allows the manufacture to modify their formulas to get the best prices on their required chemicals. Often people will call us and say they have been using an off-labeled product without any problems and all of a sudden they used it and it killed their animals. This is because the company changed to an alternate formula or the formula was too toxic and they were just lucky in the past. All of these formulas are trade secrets any despite any claim from any person, no one knows what any of these formulas are and with the exception of the generic active, they have no idea which specific technical is being used, what the actual cis-trans ration is (the label only provides a range, not what technical is actually in the product) or what the remains ingredients are in the formula.



Everyone is an "expert" and states that many products are safe to use with reptiles, while in reality, they do not have a clue as to what they are using or recommending and often these products will cause acute or chronic health problems with reptiles. Creating a chronic health issue is a real issue and no one relates the use of an off-labeled product with health problems or the death of an animal several months or years after such use.



The bottom line is unless the product has been formulated and approved for a specific use with a specific host, there is no way of knowing what such use on a non-labeled host may cause and we end up subjecting our animals as "guinea pigs". Many times in the past, people have sworn that using a product is safe and effective, only to find out over time the product was not safe and caused the demise of many animals (no pest strips are a classic example of this).



You mention Nix which is a lice shampoo for humans. First, even the more toxic technicals of permethrin will not cause issues with humans and this formula is specifically designed to break down quickly (the authorities did not want any residual on ones head), so once the bottle is opened, it will readily break down, quickly reducing any effectiveness. There are also several inerts in Nix, including a common fabric softener, which can create various issues with reptiles (since this is an FDA approved product, not EPA, they must disclose the inerts used). One also does not know which technical is being used as they have several alternate formulas, so you are always taking a risk that any bottle could be detrimental to the animal. For these reasons, it is actually more expensive to use since you really need to use a new bottle for each application and this product will provide minimal residual protection, so must be used much more frequently which adds significantly to the cost per application. Because it breaks down readily, there is also a real risk of subjecting the pest to a sub-lethal dose, which results in the pest developing resistance. This actually has happened with Nix because people kept using the same concentrate since they didn't want to spend more money on a new bottle for each application. In several countries, including Canada, this has become a real problem and there are many clinical studies showing these chemically resistant lice are becoming much harder to eradicate.



As to sales of our product in Canada, there are not enough sales to cover the cost to register the product and there are some regulatory disclosures we will not comply with (our formula is proprietary and we will not disclose it to anyone). We are not violating any laws sending it to Canada as long as we disclose the contents of the package. It is up to customs if they will allow entry into the country. To date, we have not had an issue sending to Canada, but the product is not officially registered in Canada.



Bob @ Pro Products
[email protected]
www.pro-products.com

Click to expand...

Hi Bob, thank you so much for your thorough response.

Do you mind if I post this on the reptile forums, as A LOT of people are recommending Nix and the like. It would be really helpful to be able to have the information straight from your company that other products are not safe to use and may put their reptiles in harms way.

Also could you clarify, I read this recently:

”I came across a thread on another forum about the use of PAM. In that thread a member mentioned that the company that makes PAM also makes the same product for distribution under a different name at a fraction of the price”

Here is the product they are referring to:

http://m.rei.com/mt/www.rei.com/product/768970/sa...mp-spray-24-oz

I have no idea where they got the idea that Pro-Products also makes Sawyers, is this true or false?

Thank you ever so much!

Click to expand...

Katia,



As I said earlier, many people think they are experts and know everything about these products, so will always reply that we are making these statements just to make sales and that our product and active is the same as these other products. They are absolutely wrong and unfortunately, the animals are the ones that suffer when exposed to a formulas that contains chemicals that are toxic to reptiles. All of these products have proprietary formulas (with the exception of Nix or other human topicals) and unless one is an officer in that company with access to the formula, there is no way they can have this information. As Ron White says, "you can't fix stupid". Posting to any forums in the past brings out these people that have to "prove" they are right, so we gave up a long time ago trying to educate the public.



The link you posted is a classic example of this. This is not our company and we do not have any affiliation with them. We are the sole manufacture of our product. This product is labeled to treat clothing, tents and other fabrics. The product can never be toxic to any type of fabric and any contact with the material would be to a human or possibly another mammal, all who have a very high tolerance to even the most toxic technicals sold, which are much cheaper to purchase and what most manufactures use.



Anyone can use what they want, but it is a shame that many animals develop health issues over time because they are being subjected to chemicals that are toxic both acutely and chronically due to the ignorance of the user and their inability to understand these differences or worse, create a resistant strain of mites that can't be controlled with any product.



Bob @ Pro Products
[email protected]
www.pro-products.com
845-628-8960

Click to expand...

Snakewhisperer said:

PAM and Nix use the same active ingredient, Permethrin. It is a pyrethroid contact insecticide.

Click to expand...

This, at least as far as I know, is true. BUT... that does NOT mean both products are safe for reptiles. Katia's post points out a lot of the reasons why there is potential danger in using a product that was not formulated with reptiles in mind. Here is an example that may help illustrate the reasons why although it appears to be the same, using Nix is not necessarily safe for reptiles.

Insulin for diabetics used to be manufactured using pork. (I don't know the exact process, but it is irrelevant Also, I think they have stopped doing this, but my point is still valid.) Pork insulin could be deadly to someone allergic to pork. However, other forms of insulin can safely be used by that person. They still have the same active ingredient: insulin. But the "inert" ingredients in any product are usually not nearly as "inert" as the word implies, and in the case of allergies or other interactions, inert ingredients can make the difference between something being beneficial to it being deadly.

Snakewhisperer said:

Personally I would spray a paper towel and use that to wipe down the snake, then another wipe with plain water to rinse off any residue. Permethrin is only toxic in low volumes if ingested by a reptile, and is not absorbed through the skin. The Nix solution and PAM also have about the same dilution. Just the thoughts of someone who works with pyrethroid insecticides every day.

Click to expand...

The directions on Provent-a-Mite are very specific that it is to be used on the substrate, and the animal and water dishes should be removed from the enclosure before it is treated, and not reintroduced to the enclosure until it has dried and the vapors have dissipated. I would NOT use Provent-a-Mite or Nix or any other Permethrin directly on a snake. I believe every post I've ever read by someone who has personally used Provent-a-Mite has reported good results with no negative effects IF the Provent-a-Mite was used according to the label directions. I wouldn't mess around with alternative products or alternative methods when there is something available that appears to be both safe and effective.

I cannot find the label of Nix, so cannot tell you weather the Permethrin breakdown is exactly the same. I do not think it is, though.

Does anybody viewing this thread have a bottle of Provent-A-Mite? If so, could you please take a photo of it that clearly states the chemical breakdown of the Permethrin?

I will then go to the drugstore and compare the breakdown.

Thanks for posting that information from Bob. VERY interesting. I hope I never need to use PAM in the future, but I am sure I would choose that over Nix now.

wow.....

this whole thing just blew my mind a little, it makes TOTAL sence but who would of known?
I have never dealt with mites, (knock on wood) but if I ever do, PAM is deff going to be the choise I pick!

thanks again!

Either way, don't put the PAM on the snake!!!!
Take the snake out, spray down the cage and decor with PAM, give the snake a gentle soap bath, then once the cage no longer smells like PAM, replace the snake.

I found the breakdown of the Permethrin used in Provent-A-Mite:

(3-phenoxyphenol) methyl (+/-) cis-trans 3-(2,2-dichloroethenyl) 2,2-dimethylcyclopropanecarboxylate

Cis/Trans Ratio: min. 35% (+/-) cis and max 65% (+/-) trans. Just writing this here so I can pull it up when I go to the drug store and check out the Nix!

AliCat37 said:

Either way, don't put the PAM on the snake!!!!
Take the snake out, spray down the cage and decor with PAM, give the snake a gentle soap bath, then once the cage no longer smells like PAM, replace the snake.

Click to expand...

And if at all possible, spray the Provent-A-Mite OUTSIDE and certainly not IN your reptile room or any room there are animals!

As as aside, the reason I try to ALWAYS spell Provent-A-Mite instead of simply writing PAM, is because I have heard more than once, of somebody recommending PAM and then finding out that the cooking spray was used on the snake!