Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Twice now when cleaning the feces from my ball pythons cage have seen little white "bugs" near the fresh feces. They are very small, could fit on the end of a pin, are whitish in color and appear to "jump". Does anyone know what they cloud be? They dont appear to be "on" my snake anywhere and the only time I have seen them is right near fresh feces. Thanks for any help.
Mak

They're not snake mites, snake mites are black or or dark brown, but you still need to get rid of them and it can be hard if you aren't thorough.

Get rid of the substrate, out with the trash. Use aprox. 5 - 10% bleach with water and clean the cage, taking care to not just move the mites' eggs (which you can't see) around inside the cage, from one place to another.

Rinse cage thoroughly and make sure any/all vapors/fumes are gone before putting your snake back in. You also need to disinfect the water bowl, cage decorations, etc...

Put in fresh substrate and hope for the best. Actually, I would use newspaper for a few weeks just to make sure I got rid of the mites before wasting money on substrate only to have to throw it away next week.

Best wishes!
Mike
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

If you have other reptiles in the same room? I would clean the cage in another room or outside. This way any eggs or bugs will not transfer while ceaning. One more thing I would do is to soak the snake before putting back in the clean cage.(also preventing reinfestation of clean cage.
Good Luck,
Casey