1 post tagged “snake mites”

What's one thing that you'd like to get done this weekend? Is there anything holding you back?

We have to clean all our reptile cages today, owing to a snake-mite infestation we discovered earlier this week. We just finished dosing all the cages with nice organophosphate insecticides, now we bleach all glass, plastic and ceramic effects, bake all wood, dispose of all paper, cardboard and wood chips, and rinse. All 34 cages.

Fortunately, we have the reptile keeper's secret weapon: child labour. Kids -- in this case, the neighbour's son and his friend -- love helping reptile keepers take care of their animals, so long as they get to play with them; and, thanks to them, as I write this we're at the two-thirds point. Without them, we'd be fighting fatigue and my own physical limitations -- our basement flooded earlier this week, and we're already pretty tired after cleaning up after that.

But right now, we only have about 10 cages left to do. Unfortunately, they're the big ones.