Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi guys

i have year old brazilian rainbows and after their last shed the male is showing 2 white spots on his head and the female 1 little white spot right above her eye. They both shed in 1 piece and i checked the shedded skin and i dont think its leftt skin since i also tried to gently wash it off with a bit of water. Does anyone have an idea what this could be?
The rest of their body looks wonderfull and they still eat like natural born killers.

greats,

michiel

That sounds a bit like what happened to my BRB right after we got her. She started showing a solid white patch that spread with successive sheds and then turned black. The scales were never otherwise damaged-looking. We never figured out what it was, it kind of looks like a minor burn, but I don't know how she would manage to burn herself on that spot. The guy I got her from used lights for heating, but it still seems unlikely. She's been to 2 vets in her lifetime and neither had anything to offer on what may have caused it.

Signed, Me and my B- grade BRB
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Eryx - All the fun of a boa in a convenient pocket size!

here is a pic of the male, and its really strange they have these little white marks on their head both of them at the same time. i have them both in 1 terrarium with an infra redlight and its nearly impossible for them to touch the lamp. Also my female has like 4 or 5 mites on her now and then while the male never has them i allready cleaned out the tank a few times but afdter 2 weeks or so a few come back on the female and when i wipe them off they return a few weeks later usually when she is about to shed. Strange things happening here.

You treat them agressivley. i recommend "black knight." you can purchase this for around $20-25 at www.proexotics.com. you can also print a copy of their mite provention strategy(i recommend). Black knight will kill anything with 6 or more legs WITHOUT harming your boas.

good luck, chris

thanks.
But its just werd to see they dont affect my kingsnake nor my male boa and only the female heh.

Michiel,
. Those mites will get to your other snakes fairly soon if you do not take aggressive measures to eradicate them. Mites are serious bad news for snakes. Like Christopher posted, you need to go to Proexotics.com and read about fighting mites or go to vpi.com and read their info on mites and mite treatments. Get the product Chistopher mentioned or Provent-a-mite. Both products have promethrin as the active ingredient. All other mite treatments are either less effective or harmful to snakes. I have two guesses about the small white spots on your BRBs. The first guess is that a mite got down through the scale to get to the flesh and killed a small piece of the scale. When the snakes shed the small piece of dead scale came off with the shed. Second guess is that the white spots are some sort of fungal infection. If it is fungus of some sort you might try 1%clotrimazole ointment which you can find over the counter in many drug stores in the athletes foot/ringworm/jockitch department.
Good luck,
Jeff

>>thanks.
>>But its just werd to see they dont affect my kingsnake nor my male boa and only the female heh.

Thanks for the info jeff, ill get on it right away.

Yeah, doesn't really seem like the same thing my BRB had. Definately get rid of those mites!
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Eryx - All the fun of a boa in a convenient pocket size!

Ugghhh...i had my first mite outbreak in 2 years about a month ago, which resulted from me having to feed a live mouse that apparently had mites to a sub-adult Mangrove snake (Boiga dendrophila) that is currently only feeding on live (working on changing that)...A few days after feeding her, i noticed a few mites on her. Went back to Petco, and looked at the feeder mice, and sure enough, the first one i saw had a big fat mite on it's back. Thouroughly and rather easily eradicated them with one black knight treatement and haven't seen any since. Also make sure to thouroughly clean and disinfect infected cages and any furniture, and throw out all substrate. Mites are evil! Get rid of them now! Proexotics is a great place to buy black knight, and Robyn is very helpful and I've never had a problem.

AP