The Mite Saga, Week Three

Jun 11

Written By Rachel

Hey hamster friends!

I’m now beginning week three of my fight against mites!

So far, it’s going well, and I’m making progress.

Even though Thor wasn’t showing a ton of signs of mites, I do wonder how many were emitting from his cage. Now that I have him isolated and his cage cleaned out as well I have noticed a big reduction in mite bites on my arms and legs.

I also made the decision to move them both out of the hamster room/office so that I could do more deep cleans / vacuums in here with the diatomaceous earth on a more regular basis. This seems to have helped a lot!

These are a few of my fav mite-fighting things!

Lastly, I got this really cool little puffer device that came with one of the bags of DE, and I’ve been using it to puff DE in all along the edges of the room. Even though the DE is “food grade” and should be non-toxic, I have found the dust to be pretty irritating to my throat, so I always wear an N95 mask, gloves and safety goggles while I apply the DE and I remain out of the room for about an hour afterwards.

Also featured in the photo:

Rubbing alcohol & alcohol spray: a great, non-toxic way to kill the mites. I have been using this to clean the Vistas on a regular basis.

Vaseline: Mites can’t get through Vaseline, so putting it along the top edge of the 200 qt bins is key to keeping the bugs isolated. This is something I’ll be doing with new hamsters in the future until I can confirm they do not have mites!

For more on this week’s fight against mites, check out my podcast episode here!