mites?

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davimi

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Hi,
I just noticed a tiny little mite on my bearded dragons head. How do I get rid of it and what are the dangers?
Thanks
 

dragonfanatic4454

Hatchling Member
:angry5: Alright, here we go. Definitely a sore subject for me since my one and hopefully only ever encounter with mites was the biggest pain in my butt ever! :evil: :banghead: I bought a beardie off of a good guy with a good reputation (will keep him anonymous since I believe it was an honest mistake). I bought Sonja, my super citrus italian leatherback double het for hypo and translucent off of him which he bought as a baby from bloodbank dragons. Anyway, he did not have a new bag to put her in when he shipped her so he went to his local pet store and bought one off of them which turned out to be used or somehow got infested with mites. When she came to me I looked her over but the colors are always dull when they are shipped so it was hard to tell, plus I think they may have just started ot show up on her. A few days later after she had turned her bright yellow color, I noticed these little red dots that looked like they were under each individual micro scale of her. I had no idea what they were but they didn't look like they should be there so I did some research (make that a lot of research) online searching for something that looked like what she had. I found out they were mites! :angry5: I was really upset so I emailed this guy and we got to talking about how to go about treatment of it. He was really helpful and did some of the research for me and he had told me he had them on his boas a few years ago. He ended up giving me back $100 for the treatment costs and for my troubles of sending a dragon with mites which could have infected the rest of my dragons if I had not always been so careful to wash my hands in between holdings of different dragons. Here's the treatment that I found works best...
First you need to purchase some reptile relief for your beardie and some provent-a-mite for the enclosure. Switch your substrate to either paper towel or newsprint which is what I used. Remove the beardy and place in a seperate rubbermaid container while you do this, but you can and should do them at the same time to save time. After the beardy is removed from the room, make sure any water dishes are also removed from the cage as well and all that should be in the cage now is the newsprint or paper towels and the basking rock or plastic structures. Some people say you should remove wood from the enclosure since it will somehow soak up the provent a mite but I ended up spraying my log outside just to make sure these things were gone. I kept my plast structure and newsprint and sprayed the provent a mite at a distance of about a foot away from all surfaces making sure I covered the entire enclosure especially the cracks and crevices which is where mites love to hide. Close the door to the room and let it sit for about 15 minutes.
While this is going on, you should take the reptile relief and spray some on your beardy very lightly from the neck down to the tail sparingly but enough so you can rub it in all over the body. DO NOT SPRAY YOUR BEARDIES HEAD!!! This stuff will hurt its eyes and no one wants that. Instead use a q-tip and gently rub the reptile relief around the head as close to the eyes without getting it in them. I believe the directions say to let it dry after this but you will have to read it yourself when you get some. After you follow the directions, another step you can do to help your beardy heal is get some betadyne and pour it in your beardies bath until it looks like a tea color in the water. The ntake another q-tip and gently go over all of the spots that the water doesn't gt to on your beardy. Water will kill mites but as soon as you put your beardy in the water, the mites will likely climb to higher ground which means the head. The betadyne does not kill the mites, but what it does do is help your beardy to heal all of the open wounds that the mites leaves after they let go of the beardies skin.
The provent a mite should only take 1 dosage, but I did another 3 weeks later justto be safe. Repeat the reptile relief every 48 hours no matter what the bottle says. There is no way to hurt your beardie with this stuff unlesss you get it in their eyes so no matter what the bottle says 48 hours in between usage should be plenty of time. You will notice the little red dots startes to fall off if you gently and I stress gently scratch at them with your nail, a q-tip, or soft toothbrush. This means they are dying. some will hand on until your beardies next shed but they will come off then and should turn brown to black when they are dead.
My experience with mites was horrible, but I did learn a lot from it and it left me more knowledgable than before. I just hope I never get them again! :angry5: :angry5: :angry5:
 

dragonfanatic4454

Hatchling Member
Found some olds pics of Sonja with the mites so I thought I'd post them for you.

Sonja with mites. Very hard to see!
P1010275.jpg


This pics shows them better. Look very closely at the tuny red dots on her tail! :twisted:
P1010276.jpg


Sonja after a few months of her being mites free! :D
P1010466.jpg


Hopes these pics and my post before help you out! :wink: Good Luck!
 

davimi

Member
Original Poster
The mite I saw looked to be brown in color......very tiny....Probably the same treatment
 

dragonfanatic4454

Hatchling Member
davimi":f98a0 said:
The mite I saw looked to be brown in color......very tiny....Probably the same treatment

Yes the mites could be brown in color but it should still be the same treatment. There are a few different little devils in the mites family but they are all treated the same. Just make sure they are mites before you do a treatment. Can you post pics of the dragon with the mites so we can all see?
 
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