Help! BTS mite problem!

[Gao]

Lately I bought a young blue tongue skink from a guy who's giving up this hobby. He looks like an advanced keeper. He even has a Caiman lizard. The skink lived in a nice large vivarium. He claimed it was captive bred. I didn't notice it has mites at his place. The guy has a lot of snakes and I believe it's because of the snakes I heard that snakes are more prone to get mite infestation than other reptiles. Also he's using a very weird kind of substrate it's like a mixture of sand and Eco earth. When I got home I found out it has tons of mites crawling on it. I've treated it with a kind of medicine I got from a local reptile store. I rubbed the liquid all over the skink now most of the mites have died and I've treated the plastic tub I use to quarantine it as well. Now I seldom see live mites crawling on him anymore and I will do the same treatment for it once a week for a month to kill the larvaes and eggs. I also bathe it everyday. But there's still mites under its scales I don't know if they are dead or not. The skink itself is pretty well, it's eating well and pooping well lol and very active. Will the mites under the scales come off by themselves or I'll have to remove them somehow? Any suggestion on what else I should do for it now?
Btw I plan to buy some zoo med mite off to disinfect my other animals cages to prevent mites because it's milder and I haven't seen mites in their cages yet. Has anybody used it before and does it work well?

[Scotts1au]

From what I can see is that you’ve established that they are mites. From what you say it sounds like they are parasitic mites, probably “snake mite” – although I understand that there are actually many species that are referred to generally as mites.
The only treatment that I’ve used that actually works is Permethrin based sprays – others will swear by short lived synthetic pyrethroid sprays eg.” Top of Descent”.

I’ll only comment about permethrin. It is generally safe if used as instructed, results in an instant kill of all free living mites and is residual for 30-60 days (depending on UV light exposure, temperature, other environmental exposure). Meaning that unless something goes wrong –two, or three treatments should be all that is required, if the environment is cleaned and treated.

After using an effective treatment, you should not see a single living mite after the first application. IF you do, either the treatment is not effective, or they are probably coming in from the surrounding environment – eggs hatching that have been laid outside of the enclosure. I have found that a simple solution is to spray a barrier around the enclosure with standard fly spray (which are generally use permethrin or related semi residual chemicals eg allethrin, methethrin) so any mite that tries to get back into the enclosure will die.

Generally it is ok to bath blueys during an infestation but you run the risk of spreading them any time you take the bluey out. Also if you are treating it with chemicals – you will simply wash a percentage of the chemicals off. This means that you have no way of knowing how much of the chemical is still on the bluey and if you had a plan such as three fortnightly treatments you may be overdosing your bluey, if you are topping up it’s treatment. This is also a lot of handling for an already stressed animal.

[Gao]

From what I can see is that you’ve established that they are mites. From what you say it sounds like they are parasitic mites, probably “snake mite” – although I understand that there are actually many species that are referred to generally as mites.
The only treatment that I’ve used that actually works is Permethrin based sprays – others will swear by short lived synthetic pyrethroid sprays eg.” Top of Descent”.

I’ll only comment about permethrin. It is generally safe if used as instructed, results in an instant kill of all free living mites and is residual for 30-60 days (depending on UV light exposure, temperature, other environmental exposure). Meaning that unless something goes wrong –two, or three treatments should be all that is required, if the environment is cleaned and treated.

After using an effective treatment, you should not see a single living mite after the first application. IF you do, either the treatment is not effective, or they are probably coming in from the surrounding environment – eggs hatching that have been laid outside of the enclosure. I have found that a simple solution is to spray a barrier around the enclosure with standard fly spray (which are generally use permethrin or related semi residual chemicals eg allethrin, methethrin) so any mite that tries to get back into the enclosure will die.

Generally it is ok to bath blueys during an infestation but you run the risk of spreading them any time you take the bluey out. Also if you are treating it with chemicals – you will simply wash a percentage of the chemicals off. This means that you have no way of knowing how much of the chemical is still on the bluey and if you had a plan such as three fortnightly treatments you may be overdosing your bluey, if you are topping up it’s treatment. This is also a lot of handling for an already stressed animal.

Thank you for replying! Now I'm using two kinds of sprays. The one I got earlier and zoo med mite off. I still see live mites from time too time but not as much as before. The reason why I bathe it is because the shop owner said the spray only works in form of liquid so when it dries up it is not poisonous anymore. I plan to use this spray once a week and I use zoo med mite off in between since it's more gentle. It's been four days since I started treating it. Hope it's going to get better

[Edward]

Please keep us updated on how things are going.

[Gao]

:btsnet:

Please keep us updated on how things are going.

Thanks for your concern! I took her to the vet and I've been treating her with frontline, no live mites have been seen since the first treatment

[Edward]