Re: Mites?

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Posted by Mr. D on February 05, 2001 at 23:02:12:

In Reply to: Mites? posted by George on February 05, 2001 at 21:45:38:

Hi George,
First of all, if you bring one ig home from a pet shop and it has mites, ALL of the igs you bring home from that shop will have mites. Mites CAN be a BIG problem. And they can take months to get rid of. We got lucky when we brought Bender home in that we were able to get them with a rub down of vegetable oil. Theory there is that it suffocates them. Question is though, we're not quite sure that it also takes care of any eggs that have been laid.
A friend of ours (one of those "snake people"... yes, we hang out with snake people...;)~) suggested that we use Listerene for mites as it even kills eggs. I'm going to get back to him to find out more about this so hold off on it unless anyone out here has any theories. At any rate, once we lubed Bender up and let him sit for 5 or 10 minutes, as tempted as I was to throw in some garlic and basil (old habits....) we hosed him down to get the oil off and haven't had a problem with mites since. Just have the Betadine ready once the oil massage is done because you don't want the mite bites to become infected. A bath with enough Betadine to color the water to a "weak tea" is usually sufficient. You'll want to do this for probably a week or so.
As far as the vet goes, if you have to tell him/her to look for anything other than you suspect that there is "this" problem or "that" problem then you need to find another qualified vet. You know him/her so that's a call that you'll have to make. If you need to look for another one - www.arav.org. The two biggest things I can think of is 1.) bloodwork for general health as well as for nutrition/calcium levels 2.) a stool sample to look for parasites, etc.... The only other things I can think of - What's the temp on the porch, is the ig in a sufficiently heated and lit enclosure and what are the chances that the dog will be able to get at the ig ?
Lastly, if this store has a bunch of 3-5 yr old igs in one cage it has to be one damn big cage and both animal control and the Dept. of Agriculture, or whoever regulates pet shop licensing and spot checks in your area needs to be contacted immediately because one of three things is happening here. Either the igs are beating the hell out of each other because 3-5 yr old igs SHOULD be 3-6 feet long and they'll do a LARGE amount of damage to each other if not supervised, they are ALL severely malnourished and undersized, OR they aren't 3-5 yrs old. In any case, they should never be kept that many to an enclosure and NONE of them should be kept in an actual cage. Make a few phone calls and see if anyone's interested in the case. Keep us posted and let us know if we can help further....

The Iguana Spot

Follow Ups:

Re: Mites? George 02/05/01 (2)
- It has been much colder than that in FL xta 02/06/01 (0)
- Re: Mites? Mr. D 02/06/01 (0)

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: Hi George, : First of all, if you bring one ig home from a pet shop and it has mites, ALL of the igs you bring home from that shop will have mites. Mites CAN be a BIG problem. And they can take months to get rid of. We got lucky when we brought Bender home in that we were able to get them with a rub down of vegetable oil. Theory there is that it suffocates them. Question is though, we're not quite sure that it also takes care of any eggs that have been laid. : A friend of ours (one of those "snake people"... yes, we hang out with snake people...;)~) suggested that we use Listerene for mites as it even kills eggs. I'm going to get back to him to find out more about this so hold off on it unless anyone out here has any theories. At any rate, once we lubed Bender up and let him sit for 5 or 10 minutes, as tempted as I was to throw in some garlic and basil (old habits....) we hosed him down to get the oil off and haven't had a problem with mites since. Just have the Betadine ready once the oil massage is done because you don't want the mite bites to become infected. A bath with enough Betadine to color the water to a "weak tea" is usually sufficient. You'll want to do this for probably a week or so. : As far as the vet goes, if you have to tell him/her to look for anything other than you suspect that there is "this" problem or "that" problem then you need to find another qualified vet. You know him/her so that's a call that you'll have to make. If you need to look for another one - www.arav.org. The two biggest things I can think of is 1.) bloodwork for general health as well as for nutrition/calcium levels 2.) a stool sample to look for parasites, etc.... The only other things I can think of - What's the temp on the porch, is the ig in a sufficiently heated and lit enclosure and what are the chances that the dog will be able to get at the ig ? : Lastly, if this store has a bunch of 3-5 yr old igs in one cage it has to be one damn big cage and both animal control and the Dept. of Agriculture, or whoever regulates pet shop licensing and spot checks in your area needs to be contacted immediately because one of three things is happening here. Either the igs are beating the hell out of each other because 3-5 yr old igs SHOULD be 3-6 feet long and they'll do a LARGE amount of damage to each other if not supervised, they are ALL severely malnourished and undersized, OR they aren't 3-5 yrs old. In any case, they should never be kept that many to an enclosure and NONE of them should be kept in an actual cage. Make a few phone calls and see if anyone's interested in the case. Keep us posted and let us know if we can help further....

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