How Do I Get Rid of Snake Mites?

First and foremost snakes get mites. It does not mean you are not taken care of them or you did something wrong. It is what you do now that matters.

Snake mites (Ophionyssus natricis) can be deadly for your snake if not caught and treated in time. Your snake could have caught these parasites from another snake close-by, the pet store or from the wild if the snake was captured from wild.

Remember you will need to treat all your snakes if you have more than one, further to that you will also need to isolate your snakes until you know for sure the parasites have been treated and have gone.

Also after you have read and followed up on this articles instructions, check your snake for lumps around the scales. This could be a sign of a more intense mite infestation, vet treatment should be sought in this case.

Okay for this article we will go with you already knowing for sure your snake has mites. You have seen the mites in the water bowl, crawling on the snake or under the snakes’ scales. If you’re not sure what a mite looks like they are very small round bugs.

Mites look like very small ticks. When I say small I mean very tiny most are not bigger than the period on your keyboard. One type is very dark brown to almost black looking. If you kill it you can see the snakes blood inside it.

There is lots of treatments and ways to get rid of snakes. This is the one I use and so far has worked well with 100% mite death and 0% snake death. But it is up to you on how you treat your snakes.

The first time I seen a mite on one of my snakes was on a pair of rescued ball pythons. They had very bad case of mites. The male had 100’s on him. I picked him up to move out his cage and had at least 15 to 20 on my hands. The female had them but as bad. Well here is what I did to get rid of them.

1st I took them out of their cage. The cage was a 120g home built glass and wood tank Looked like a fish tank with a wood top. Real nice tank so throwing it away was not in the plans.

It was also not below 30 outside so cold would not kill mites and I knew it was not going to over 90 anytime soon so heat was out also. I spent around 6 hours online reading everything I could on mites.

2nd I put the pythons in Rubbermaid totes that was 3/4 full of warm not hot but warm 88 degrees F water to soak while I cleaned out there cage. Don’t worry most if not all snakes can swim and in this case soaking is what they would do in the wild.

3rd I pulled out all of stuff in the cage, anything I didn’t want to keep went in the trash and outside the house. After all the big stuff was out I put moth balls in my vacuum and sucked out all the left over stuff.

Trust me moth balls in there does not make it smell better but does kill any live mites you suck up. You don’t want a vacuum full of mites in your closet.

4th I went to Walmart yes Wally World not the pet store to get the stuff I needed. First I got some lice bed spray cost around $5 where I live and a hot shot pest strip around $5 and 2 small bowls with lids.

All in all it was around $14 for all of the stuff. Prevent-a-mite cost $30 and the only pet store I could it at almost 40 miles from my house. I called like 20 pet stores and feed stores. The lice spray is the same thing as p-a-m.

Trust me if you can’t find Pam in your area and have to order it online your snakes will not like waiting in water for the mail man.

5th back home I took the lice spray and sprayed the tank with a good coat not a wet soaking coat just a good coat I made sure I got all the cracks and corners that is where the mites like to hide and lay eggs. After the tank was coated I let it dry it turns white and hard to see when it dries. It will take around 45 minutes to dry. While it dried I opened the pest strip ok for this part You do need some gloves I already had some on hand that use to clean my tanks.

Ok open the strip and pop it open and take out the yellow inside. Take a very sharp knife or something to cut it with.

Cut off as much and you need this depends on the size of the tank mine was a 120g so I used half, now for a 10g tank I use like the size of a stamp or smaller too much is not a good thing. and to little will not work.

There is a way to tell later. Take one of your bowls and poke holes in it and the lid. These holes should be big enough and amount to let air in and out but small enough that the snake can’t get in it or the strip can’t fall out. Heating a nail or screw on the stove and poking holes in it works great just be careful.

So put your cut side in the bowl with holes and the other one in the bowl with no holes. Put the bowl without holes somewhere cool and safe we are done with it for now.

6th Clean your tank with warm water with a 1/10 bleach 1 part bleach to 10 parts water. Do not wash a wood tank this way just use water. Wash it very good then change the water to just water and wash it again – do this 3 more times.

I know it sounds like a lot of work and it was on my 120g with a built on wood top loads of fun but I had to do it.

7th after it is clean dry put some newspaper in the bottom of it. Try to find some mostly white. paper towels can work for a small tank. And place the bowl with the strip in it. Very important there is no water in the tank no water bowls of any kind the stuff in the strip will stay active in the water and your snake will drink it and could kill it.

Every day take your snake out and soak it for at least 30 minutes after 3 days take out the strip and put water in the tank for the snakes after about 4 hours of no strip. All live mites and 80% of eggs should be dead now.

for the next month every 6 days take out the water and place strip in tank for 24 hours, after this all the mites should be dead and gone if your sure they are dead and gone go ahead and set up the tank the way you want it.

I have had mites on 2 different types of snakes one was this pair of ball pythons and the other was a BRB. It worked to kill them both times. T

he easy way to get rid of them is to never have them But I got them twice in less of 4 months from two different places they are not the death of everything like I was thinking when I seen them the first time.

I hope this helps and good luck just make sure no water in the tank with the strip.