vegetable oil good for snakes?

[#1stunner]

is it good to put oil on snakes i did before but someone told me it was bad
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[JuliusSqueezer]

For what reason? It is good to use to rub on small patches of bad shed or retained eye caps....but is not good to just rub them down for no reason. Skin needs to breathe and absorb moisture. A layer of oil prevents this and they will dehydrate. It can kill young snakes fairly quick as they seem to dehydrate faster than adults.
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[LdyDrgn]

I use it to treat for mites. Snake gets an 'oil bath'... look in the care sheets for instructions. As long as you wash it off when done, no harm is done. I use the veggie oil instead of the mineral oil.

If to help with shedding, higher humidity is your best bet. But I've heard of people putting a little bit of vitamin E oil in the misting water and spraying that on the snakes. Don't know how much of a good idea that is, though.

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	Mites Mites, close relatives of fleas and ticks

[telefrag]

I can just imagine oil'ing up a really fast nervous snake, and trying to keep ahold of it.

I just picture those silly "watersnake" balloon things they used to sell at fairs.

HAHHAHAHAHA!

ok, im done being dumb. [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
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[#1stunner]

i used it to treat mites and it worked good so i thought puttin it on all the others would keep mites off them
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	Mites Mites, close relatives of fleas and ticks

[Ophiophagus-hannah]

I don't know about snakes, but it sure taste good with my fried chicken! [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
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[LdyDrgn]

Keeping oil on the snakes in order to keep mites off is NOT a good idea. Only way to keep the mites off the snakes is to make sure the enclosures are clean and to feed f/t prey and wash your hands before and after handling EACH snake. There will always be the chance that you've been in a petstore handling one of theirs, going home and touching your animals or not washing up and having it travel from you to the snake's enclosure.
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	Mites Mites, close relatives of fleas and ticks

[JuliusSqueezer]

it will drown most of the mites but really isn't 100% effective because mites will also get in the eyes, nostrils, vent, heat pits if applicable and lay eggs. Sure most if not all of the adult mites will die but the eggs will still hatch out and so the problem is ongoing. Plus a mite only spends about 10% of it's life on a host animal. There are still mites in the cage to contend with. It is far less work to open a cage....remove the snake and water bowl. Spray a couple of poofs of proventamite or comparible .5% permetherin spray (ie: rid or sawyer's tick spray) into the cage....wait a couple of hours and put the snake and water bowl back in. Repeat in a couple of weeks. No messy oil....no substrate change....no bleaching. just poof poof all done. I would chop off my own head if I had to oil mites off of my entire collection.
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	Mites Mites, close relatives of fleas and ticks

[XzyluM]

I've known mineral oil is good to treat mites, is "vegetable oil" working the same? Or am I missing something? [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img]
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	Mites Mites, close relatives of fleas and ticks

[JuliusSqueezer]

I have used both....cept I used olive oil if not mineral oil cause that's pretty much all I ever have here for cooking oil. I don't know of any difference in the overall effect of using either. LdyDrgn says mineral oil dries them out more than vegetable oil...I have no argument one way or the other because I have never completely covered a snake with either...I just use it for minor patches of stuck shed or for softening retained eyecaps. Lori swears by mineral oil for mite removal but I think since her collection has grown and since she has had to deal with some really large boids....this method has been sidelined in her camp too. I have sworn for years by 5% sevindust...but for the same reason (too much mess and work for a large collection of 50+snakes) I have sought out methods that don't require so much mess and substrate change....and am very pleased with the results....Sawyer's tick spray! BWSmith gets full credit for pointing out that it's the exact same thing as proventamite for 1/4 the cost....even has the same patent number lol....I already knew Rid was the same but I just never could make myself go through a checkout line with Lice spray.
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	Mites Mites, close relatives of fleas and ticks

[XzyluM]

Ok, guess it clears that up. Thanks.
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<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font class="pn-sub">Quote:</font><HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT class="pn-sub"><BLOCKQUOTE>I already knew Rid was the same but I just never could make myself go through a checkout line with Lice spray. </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>

ROFLMFAO!!!!
[img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img] [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img] [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]
UMM.. Jul's ?? It wouldn't be like the cashier, or anyone else for that matter even, would think it was for you at all I would think. Least not from &quot;what they could see&quot; haahahaha

Ok.. Yeah i always used mineral oil for snake de-miting, BUT like Jul's said.. With the growing collection of HUGE snakes around here now I have resorted to other methods unless it is a smaller [ less than 6' snake ] with mites that I am treating. I also now use the Sawyer's Tick spray . In fact I use it just like the Provent a Mite s[pray and spray ALL my enclosures down EVERY time we do a complete substrate change also. In fact I keep a tote with aspen in it that I spray down so that I always have some aspen on hand that has been treated even for when cage changes are down. When we get a snake in rescue/rehab that has mites, then we increase the use of the Sawyer's to like twice per week and also keep them on newspaper and do MAJOR cage cleanings daily also.
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	Mites Mites, close relatives of fleas and ticks

[XzyluM]

Brett, with a slick knob like yours, what would a cashier possibly think? [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]
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[JuliusSqueezer]

I dunno...butt lice? Doesn't matter anyway...I can just buy the tick spray [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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