Worst Nightmare
The Newdle’s got mites!
(You should expect this as a given with any new snake. Better safe than not.)
What do you do about mites? You get down to business. (TL;DR at the end.)
1) Quarantine, Quarantine, Quarantine!
Mites are the devil and can spread diseases from snake to snake in the same way that mosquitoes spread malaria. Whenever you bring a Newdle into the home, keep that man the hell away from all your other little buddies. A month will work for mites alone, but I’m a proponent of long-term quarantine of 6 months or greater if you can manage it, mostly for a little disease called Inclusion Body Disease, an invariably fatal, contagious monster of an illness which both Pythons and Boas are susceptible to. Don’t risk it!
2) Isolation and Cleaning of the Snake Itself
Regardless of whether you were quarantining or not, you’re gonna want to get the affected away from the rest of your animals right away -- and furthermore, assume that the entire rest of your collection is affected and proceed accordingly.
Take the infected animal(s) and give them a soak. They’re probably already soaking, because snakes sit in water to try and kill off their parasitic little friends -- but nonetheless put then into a ventilated bin and give them a soak. (Then when they foul the water, clean the whole entire thing and put them BACK in for the REAL soak.) Add a little betadine to the water after they’ve fouled the water, been put into new water, and had their fill of THAT water to help soothe all the bites. This won’t kill the mites, this is purely for the poor snake’s comfort because mite bites are like mosquito bites and clearly make the animal uncomfortable.
After they’ve had their soak, I recommend wiping them down with a product called Reptile Relief. It’s snake-safe and it can help kill off anything you miss. It’s about the only thing you can apply directly to an animal -- don’t even think of trying it with the other thing I’m about to mention.
3) Cleaning the Enclosure (and Everything Else)
While your snake is safely tucked away somewhere surrounded by paper towels covered in Reptile Relief to deter anything getting out of the bin (NE Herp does this to keep mites out of their fly colonies,) it’s time for the nuclear option on the enclosure itself.
If there are other animals in this room, including feeder insects, get them out before you do this. Wear gloves, open the windows, and turn on the fan, because we’re dealing with some serious stuff now, and it can be fatal to small animals and make you sick your damn self.
Deep clean the enclosure in your usual method, making note that when you’re done you’re gonna be washing whatever you’re wearing on hot. Throw out anything porous -- sorry, but you’re not saving it now. Anything in there that’s got little cracks/crevices or isn’t made of hard plastic, glass, or metal is a lost cause.
This is the nuclear option, but it’s time to go nuclear. Mites are no joke.
Once everything’s cleaned, either take it outside or put it somewhere with great ventilation. Protect yourself, too -- gloves, a mask if you got one, it’s not gonna kill you outright but you don’t want it on you.
Then spray every item except the water bowl down on all sides (though you don’t need much!) with a product called Provent-a-Mite.
PAM is a miticide, it’s an insecticide for mites, and if you don’t like chemicals you’re just gonna have to move past that today. It’s long-lasting, and it will kill both the mites that exist, and the ones that are going to hatch out for the next few weeks. One can will last you for ages if used as directed, so it’s always good to keep it on hand... just in case.
While the enclosures are airing out, turn to the room itself. Spray the doors, the perimeter around each enclosure, and things like snake hooks and bedding or other soft materials where snakes might have been and deposited mites in the process. Don’t spray anything used in feeding like hemostats, tongs, or (god help you) a pinkie pump, or anything meant to hold your snake’s water, as you don’t want them ingesting this shit.
(If you already know what a Pinkie Pump is and what it’s for, you probably already know everything in this guide.)
Once that’s done, leave everything to air out for at least six hours, but go to twelve if you can. You do not want fumes hanging around.
4) Aftercare
You are going to need to be stringent in cleaning everything from here on out. To quote Mad-Eye Moody here for a second, CONSTANT VIGILANCE. Check everything. Toss sheds right away. Change clothes -- yes, really -- between handling the infested and the rest of your collection. We’re back in quarantine mode, folks, function over form, sterilization over decoration. Paper towels, two hides, water bowl, heat source. To add more gives the mites a place to potentially hide. Your snake will be fine in this setup until you can clear the room and the rest of your house as a mite-free zone.
Continue to clean as you regularly do. Fresh water every day, replace paper towels as needed, always check for mites. I recommend spraying more Reptile Relief once a week, but if using PAM you probably don’t have to do that. Do a complete teardown once a month and reapply PAM to at least the enclosure and fixtures, making sure to use the proper precautions when doing so.
Yes, it’s a lot of work. It’s a pain in the ass. But it’s better than the alternative, and it’s what our animals deserve.
Keep to the routine for at least three months after you stop seeing mites. Do not take for granted that they are gone until you can be POSITIVE that they are gone, because it only takes one missed mite to start this whole ordeal over again.
5) Prevention is Worth an Ounce of Cure
Mites are scary, and the worst. What can you do to prevent them?
Quarantining new arrivals is the biggest kindness you can give to your pets, folks. I cannot stress this enough. Even if the animal you get in is sick or mitey or otherwise ill, at least by quarantining them, you prevent the rest of your animals from winding up as sick as the poor new guy. Quarantine is the single best defense between one sick animal and nothing BUT sick animals. It’s worth the hassle.
Freezing substrates can also help, though, as can making sure you buy bedding from places that don’t generally carry animals. Mites are like ticks, and they can survive for a quite a while without food. Getting something where there aren’t any other animals simply decreases the risk of encountering mites in an already-healthy collection. Prophylactically spraying down bedding and new enclosures with PAM before you even set them up can be a great help to get a head-start on killing off any mites that might be coming into your house on an animal in the mail, too, and it really doesn’t take much to get the job done, so it’s a worthwhile endeavor in my opinion.
Feeding frozen-thawed can help, too -- but that’s not an option for everyone (lizard feeders, you have my sympathy.) For those who can do it (and that’s the majority of people who keep herps,) do it! It’s safer for everyone involved.
One more thing you can do, though don’t do it if you’re using PAM, is buy a bag of Hypoasis miles -- mites that eat mites. I’d only do this for people with sensitive animals like amphibians who can’t handle chemicals nearly as well -- especially since Hypoasis need high humidity environments to survive.. They’ll eat anything that lives on the surface of the soil and above, and they’re a self-limiting population that will feed on themselves if they run out of food. 1000% recommended if you have a problem in a planted vivarium or another setup that’s difficult to just tear down and put back together. (That said, they’re a little pricey!)
Afterword and TL;DR
At the end of the day, most keepers are probably going to run into mites at some point in their life. Whether you keep noodles, lizards, or something else entirely (’sup, backyard chicken community!), mites are the great equalizer, and even the best-kept animals still run the risk of mites or ticks. So it’s better to be prepared and aware of what to do ahead of time, rather than to frantically google it and wait days for fancy reptile products to get shipped to your home.
Don’t be the me of the past, and I hope no one ever needs this guide.
TL;DR
QUARANTINE so you don’t have this issue
ISOLATE if you have this issue anyway
CLEAN everything, snake, enclosure, the works
TREAT the snake, the bedding, the enclosure, the room
VENTILATE this step is important I’m serious
MONITOR the animal going forward
MAINTAIN the treatments for at least 3mo after the last seen mite
CONSTANT VIGILANCE
This has been my PSA on mites and what to do about them.
