parasites?

ok guys, I have a question. I have recently found 2 "bugs" on Sienna. One was 2 weeks ago, and i just thought it was a random event, but I found another one today and now I am worried. It was about the quarter of the size of her eye, about the size of a pin head. Unfortunately, its too small for me to count the legs (don't know if its a tick). And I'm pretty sure thats too large to be a mite. Its light brown and tapers at the head, and its squishable (so if its a tick its a soft bodied one). Has anyone ever see or dealt with anything like this? Any ideas what it could be? I wish i had a pic for you, but its just too small for my camera...

I just may be a mite. They can get big sometimes. I would use just paper towel for the viv. This will make it easier to see them. Chances are if you have found two there are many more you haven't seen.

Right, thats my main concern, I'm sure there are more. :uhoh:

However, my husband and I both checked her thoroughly and can't seem to find any other "bugs" on her, and don't see any other signs of mites. But I'm really confused, they could be mites. None of my other herps have ever had them, so i wouldn't know...

So my next two questions are:
1) since she refused her last meal should I wait until after I offer her food again before switching to paper towels (in case she's just stressed...would changing the viv stress her out more?) Also, I realize that if she has mites, that may be a reason she's refusing food.

2) If this is mites, what's the best way to go about treating her and her viv, does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance for the help...
and thanks, DAND, for the advice.

Katie,

The refusal of food is something that sometimes happens when they have mites. I'd go ahead and go to the paper towels now. The sooner you find out if this is the problem the sooner you can start the removal process.

I've just sent you an e-mail with a little information about a way to remove the mites.

You're welcome. Hope the advice will be helpful.

T-Rex has a really good product called Mite Off. With this product, you can treat (spray) the tank and your snake. You can usualy find it at most reptile stores.

LadyLaw

I had mites on one of my pythons a few years back. I know I had to soak him in a bowl of water to try to get off a lot of the mites. They would just fall off the snake in the water. Like LadyLaw said, Mite OFF works great. I would definately start ASAP with the tank cleaning and the soaking of the snake. Once you start getting mites, it's amazing how much the multiply. Then you have to worry about the mite egg's that get stuck in the corners of your viv.

Keep us informed.

Thanks for all the information guys!

And Dave, thanks for the really in-depth email. I'm off work today, so I'm gonna head out and get the stuff to treat her in about an hour. Even if the "bugs" aren't mites, I've never treated her since she has arrived, so its probably a good precautionary measure. Thanks so much for all that information.

Once again, I love this site so much. Thank you all for your help!

Not a problem. Keep us updated on how things go.

Alright, here's an update.

I waited until tonight to treat Sienna so that Jeff could help me empty her heavy cage. Well, we took her out to look at her, and we got her under our brightest light again and she had those little "bugs" running all over her (probably like 20 of them, way more than we had seen before). That freaked me out a little bit. Fortunately, I already had that Nix solution DAND told me about all mixed up and I put her in a tupperware container and sprayed her down really well. It was so strange though, as we squirted her, you could see the larger bugs falling off dead in the pools of water around her body and they were accompanied by little black peppery looking spots. So yeah, sounds like mites to me. I sprayed down *everything* in and around her viv (even the clips for the lid, which I almost forgot). That done, I put paper towels in the bottom of her viv (oh yeah, I sprayed the tank inside and out too, did I mention that?) and sprayed them, and then sprayed down a paper towel tube so she'd have a hide while her other hides (wooden) were being treated for the next 24 hours.

So hopefully that will take care of everything. I'll do the other two treatments, and hope for the best. Judging from the amount of mites that fell off of her and her hides I'm sure it definately made a difference. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Oh yeah...and she tried to suck up the solution left on the walls. As soon as I saw her do it I immediately dried up the few droplets left in there, but do you think that will be harmful to her? I hope not *fingers crossed*

Anyway, I think thats everything.

Update #2:

24 hours since first treatment and no sign of any mites! Yay! Just put her water bowl back into her viv and she is throughly enjoying a nice drink.

She was a little sluggish earlier today, but really seemed to pep up after her drink.

Things are finally looking better. *fingers crossed*

Great to hear! :cheers: