Hi! >I have not checked for anything like that, but I do hold her on a >regular >basis and have not noticed any little creatures on her. What >specifically >should I look for?
Mites are blood-sucking organisms. One of the problems are that they can carry diseases from one reptile to another. Ticks could also be what you have, but they are relatively large, and stationary after they lock into the reptile skin, and should be easy to see. Mites on the other hand are tiny and very mobile. They can be found moving around on the reptile or in it's environment. Mites are usually black, or bright red or orange. As with most parasites mites and ticks do not represent a big problem in the wild, but they can cause big problems in the captive environment. On lizard you usually will find mites moving around the body, under the edges of scales, around eyes or ears, or any other place where the skin is thinner. It might be hard to get rid of mites, one of the reasons is that they spend a lot of their non-feeding time hidden away in moist, dark places. They reproduce quickly, and at any time you will have mites in different life-stages in the enclosure. This means to get rid of them, not only means treating the lizard, but also the environment the lizard lives in. One effective way to treat the lizard for mites would be to give it a warm (85F) bath in diluted Betadine (color of medium tea). Pour the water-povodine-iodine solution over the lizard, be careful (specially around the eyes). The water should drown the mites, and the Betadine should help treat the mite bites. Then, use a saturated soft cloth in diluted Betadine and use it between their legs and body, through the folds of skin around the neck etc. You can use a cotton-tipped swab to apply the dilute Betadine around the eyes and nose. Then finally rinse the lizard in a warm water bath. The next thing you need to do is clean the environment... Get rid of the stuff you change periodically (substrate etc.), wash the tank and everything in it with a bleach-water solution (1:30). Let all the accessories soak in this solution for about 8 hours. Use a no-pest strip in the set-up and seal it up tightly so that you keep the toxic fumes inside the tank where they are needed. Air out the tank when you are done for a few hours, make sure all the fumes are gone. As you see you need an alternate place to keep your lizard while you are doing this. For the next few weeks you may want to use a simple as possible set-up (paper towel for substrate etc.). This will make it easier to see if you got rid of the mites. Anyways, this is a subject you can write pages and pages about. :) There are other ways to do this, and some people prefer to use non-toxic cleaning stuff.... Hope this helps, and I'm sorry for the long posting... Magnus _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ########################################################################### THE GLOBAL GECKO ASSOCIATION LISTSERV WebSite: www.gekkota.com Archive: [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ The GGA takes no responsibility for the contents of these postings. ###########################################################################
