Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was holding my pueblan today and noticed these tiny brownish things crawling on him (three in total...that I got) I know whatever it is can't be good, but for some reason my dad says he won't take him to a vet unless he already knows what it is and how they'll treat it. I've only had him for a little less than a month, and I don't want to lose him, and ideas what it could be?

Do you have wood in your enclosure? Do you see any mites dug into your snake? They would be just under its scales. Derek

No need to go to a vet. You can and should handle this yourself. Go to the ball python forum and do a search for mites. There's several post and lots of good advice. If your still not sure after reading the post in the ball forum, email me. I'll reply with a long email of all the steps to clean up your snake, caging, etc.

thanks! I checked it out and found some good info.

When I worked in a small-town Texas pet shop, we had wild-caught ball pythons come in all the time (I didn't like it that they were WC, but I needed a job...). Anyway, they ALWAYS had a few "snake ticks" on them burrowed beneath the scales. I've never seen them on other snakes, but is that a possibility? How small were they?
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~Venom~
venom_within@yahoo.com

they were miniscule, and I wouldn't have noticed them if I wasn't looking at him closely anyway, and I saw it on a yellow band(they look dark brown). I used a mite spray and cleaned the whole enclosure, so we'll see. There were only a few, so thats good

it is the best ive found for removing mites. follow the directions on the bottle to a t. dont use it on a snake that is shedding or freashly shed.and remember mites dont lay eggs on the snake they will lay them highh in the enclosure and like moist areas. if you remove the moist areas and clean good up high it will work. also this kills mites not mite eggs so you will want to treat a few times.
adam
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1.0.0 snow corn het hypo,anery,amel
1.0.0 amel corn unknown hets(4ft 8inch long)
1.0 sinacorn
1.1 kenyan sand boas
0.1 mbk
0.1 albino nelsons
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I use reptile relief, from time to time I got a few random mites on my pair of amazon tree boas a while ago... not on any other of my snakes. Non were wild caught, but one was given to me, unlikely the female got it there but whatever, it was an odd mite migration. I had very few but they came consistently, so I was given some of this stuff. This was a few years ago...I sprayed the snakes, the cage...no mites since, not one.

You say it doesn't kill mite eggs, but I was told it does and it pretty much eliminated all mites for me (and I know there were eggs in that cage, they were positively multiplying). All natural and didn't effect my snakes faces (eye's, sensory organs, etc) at all. Reptile Relief is just simply amazing.
-Sean

Although Reptile Relief will kill mites on the snake, a major infestation (meaning eggs in or outside the cage) will be unaffected.

www.pro-products.com sells a product called Provent-a-Mite. When used EXACTLY as instructed on the can, the results are amazing. Easy and safe when used as instructed - will kill eggs too. You can spray outside the cage to get those mites there too.

I used reptile relief, because it was all they had in stock were I went. It worked fine (so far...) since I think I caught it pretty early. If they come back, I'll try what you suggested.

I haven't had mite problems other than that small infestation, and I was told it killed eggs, but I'm assuming that you'd have more experiance in mites ( not to say that your collection is infested ). I just found it to work really well and believed it killed the eggs, but I may be wrong.
-Sean