5 New Boas!

Originally Posted by Scooter1685

I may have gone a little overboard on the cleaning thing (if that's possible).

LOL nope it's not possible! After battling mites I treat every snake coming in as if it's infested - it gets wiped down with Reptile Spray before it even comes into the house, the QT enclosure is sprayed with PAM the day before the new arrival shows up, and for the first 30 days in QT I treat replacement newspaper or paper towels with PAM and let that dry as well.

I've never had mites (knock on wood!), but I too subscribe to the treat-the-enclosure-with-PAM-before-arrival school. Better paranoid than sorry.

I've never heard of the PAM use before. How does it work? Does the oil from the spray prevent the mites from breathing while feeding? Interesting, I'll have to look that up. Thanks for letting me know guys

Originally Posted by Scooter1685

I've never heard of the PAM use before. How does it work? Does the oil from the spray prevent the mites from breathing while feeding? Interesting, I'll have to look that up. Thanks for letting me know guys

LOL not the cooking spray! It's short for Provent-A-Mite.
http://www.pro-products.com/index.ph...d=53&Itemid=59

Ah, gotcha. Thought that sounded a little odd, lol. Kept wondering why making the enclosure slippery and oily would be a good thing for mites.

Wups, my bad. Thanks for the clarification, Melinda!!

As of Thursday (10-10) I have observed no sign of mites on any of my boas for a full week. I've given everyone who was exposed two additional treatments since then, and I plan to keep all of my boas on plain white paper towels for a few more weeks. If all goes well, I'll finally be getting those pictures up around the 18th.

I've also begun temperature cycling for breeding this year. I'm getting excited! I plan to try four females this season. We'll see what happens. With the amount I've spent in the last 2 months on new boas, rack systems, hooks, mite treatments, and other expenditures, my wife says I'm forbidden to expand further until I have at least one successful litter. I guess that's fair

I've been using this thread to update on the mite situation because these were the snakes who had mites. After I saw mites on the first two, another pair from this group started showing them. It's possible they were transmitted during shipping, given that the five boas were placed in two cloth bags. Three from this group also had retained sheds, and all but one had easily visible skeletal structures. They're doing well now though, eating regularly and taming slowly.

Caught myself rambling there. I'll shut up. Have a good weekend everyone!

Congrats (so far), and fingers crossed for you!