PetSmart, I hate you! D: [Rant]

[Radioactive Condoms]

So, about 3 or 4 months ago, my aunt bought a big bag of aspen bedding from PetSmart for the snakes. Which, usually, would be fine, since that was where we had always bought it from. About a week later, when I was taking out one of them, I noticed a small, moving black dot and INSTANTLY freaked out and checked the rest of the snakes. ALL OF THEM HAD MITES!

In the TEN YEARS that I've kept snakes, I've NEVER had a snake get mites. Their cages were always kept spotless, they always had great sheds, never got URIs, NOTHING. Now all of a sudden they're everywhere. So I went through and individually bleached, rinsed, bleached, and rinsed AGAIN each tank, and then all of the snakes got 30 minutes soaks and were kept on paper towels for the next few weeks, and the tanks were rescrubbed weekly with bleach and soap.

After about a month of not seeing any mites, I was relieved that the scare was over, and we decided to replace the towels with bedding again in their tanks for the first time, to which the snakes seemed immensely happy. Everything was fine, and then two weeks later, much to my surprise, I saw another black dot on Nyx, and went through them all again to find that yes, the mites had returned! I figured that maybe a few of the mites had stayed hidden under their scales and were reemerging now that there was bedding to hide in. SO, the whole process was repeated again: Bleach, rinse, bleach, rinse, bath and back onto the towels. They had no hides, nothing that mites could possibly hide in, and the water dishes were scrubbed thoroughly.

This time, I waited about two months before I decided to put the bedding back in(Keep in mind, this is the same bag of bedding this entire time), and AS I was scooping the bedding into the first tank, I saw HUNDREDS of little black specks. I'm lucky that my snakes weren't INFESTED with them, and had I not spent all the time scrubbing their cages, they probably WOULD have been!

My aunt and I have both agreed that we're not getting ANY substrate from PetSmart EVER again. I'm half tempted to go up there and complain to the manager, but I don't see much good coming out of that. I think, the most that would happen, is they'd offer us a new bag of bedding, and we'd be back to square one. UGH, I just hate it when pet stores are irresponsible with their merchandise! Who knows how many snake owners in my area are out there right now losing snakes to infestation now?!

What I'm NOT sure of however, is how the mites LIVED in the bedding. Seeing as they feed off of blood, and from what I've heard can't switch from feeding off of a cold blooded animal to a warm blooded or vice versa, and they weren't on the snakes, shouldn't they have died? I can't imagine they'd be able to go over a week or so without feeding?

JoAnne  

[Kithy Kitty]

I recall hearing that it sometimes happens but I'm not quite sure why. I've heard that freezing the bedding is supposed to kill them off. I always used carefresh for my rabbit and gerbils and never froze it but people say to, ionno.

Hopefully it doesn't happen anymore >.< Mites are awful.  

[xXGabriella-ShadowfireXx]

ALL bedding can get mites. Its not just one store. Its from it being stored in warehouses before being shipped to stores. When you get the bedding you can freeze it for 24 hours or you can microwave for a 10 seconds. Even paper bedding can have mites.  

[Levina-jade]

Having worked for a few retail pet stores mites in bedding is thankfully not to common but it does happen.

We (all of the Midwest districts) had a recall last summer on ALL the repti bark, including the store use packages. Something had happen where a large batch had not been heated correctly at the factory and they all had ALL sorts of bugs in them, lots of mites, a few ticks and some other buggies, that was a pain in the butt to get back under control.

and yes like the consumer, the company didn't do the recall untill after a bunch of stores had mite issues, our poor tortoise even had two ticks on him.  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

trying to remember what I learned in parasitology lol. I know that with FLEAS the eggs can survive in beds for months, dormant, until they feel vibration. I dunno if mites are hardy like that, but it's possible you had eggs in your bedding. I would complain to the manager. Maybe he won't give you bedding, maybe a credit or something. Is it possible though it's not petsmart at fault here but the company who packages the bedding? I mean, maybe you use the same Company all this time, but I have a friend who swears by iams cause he fed his dog that all his life and somehow all the dogs that died from the recall don't concern him. Sometimes a good company can have bad things happen. (Not that Iams is good...)  

[Radioactive Condoms]

Thanks for the info guys. I know, it might not technically be PetSmart's fault, and sometimes they can't control the manufacturers mistakes, but I've had a few problems with this PetSmart, so it's hard NOT to be mad at them. I'm going to look into calling the manufacturer as soon as I get home and see what happens.

Also, I'll be baking any bedding I get from now on.

JoAnne