Snake mites (Ophyonissus natricus) are a plague upon reptile keepers worldwide. Rarely found in the wild but very common in captivity, these little bloodsuckers can kill your snake and many lizard species by simply causing a severe anemic condition. This excessive bloodloss is not the only problem snake mites are implicated in. Various transmissible diseases such as Inclusion Body Disease in boids have been shown to be conveyed by mites. Never consider mites as "normal". Anyone that says this doesn't care enough about their animals. Would you leave fleas on your dog? Is it "normal" for humans to live their life with a constant lice infestation? Of course not.

Then why force your reptile to live with mites? Mites can be deadly. Kill them dead!

Prozap insecticidal strips are a proven effective snake mite treatment. The standard treatment is fourteen days of one square inch of Prozap strip per ten gallons of enclosure. The water bowl is removed and the reptile soaked every other day throughout the treatment. At the onset of treatment all bedding is removed and the cage washed thoroughly. The animal is soaked to kill many of the mites by drowning. The cage is re-set up in a spartan newspaper bedding only type setup. The treatment is for fourteen days because the life cycle of the mite is such that there are two non-feeding stages of mite. These non-feeding instars live away from the snake and possibly out of the enclosure and in the environment. During the two week treatment these non-feeding stages will molt into a feeding form and travel back to the snake. They will then come in contact with the insecticidal gas given off by the Prozap strip, killing them. The timeline goes something like this. Day one; all feeding stages of mite are killed by the Prozap. Day two thru fourteen; snake is soaked every other day to provide water, mite eggs hatch and are killed by prozap. All non-feeding stages metamorphose into feeding stages, return to the snake and are killed by the Prozap. Day fourteen; the treatment is over. You can re-setup the enclosure as you desire.

The mites are eliminated completely. The only known way for your snake to get mites again are through re-infection. The vectors for infection are as follows: (A) contact with other mite infested snakes (B) handling mite infested snakes and then handling your snake [that is right, humans are a vector] (C) feeding rodents from a mite infested source (D) letting your snake wander outside [very remote source] (E) collecting cage furniture from outside [also very remote]. Avoid these vectors and your pet will remain mite free. Many of our customers that bought snakes elsewhere have successfully followed these directions. So can you!