Attitude ? Mites ?

[Gollum]

Well my bp has been soaking quite a lot even though the humidity is right ( it dropped for no apparent reason to 60% , I can't get it higher these days ). I thought he could have mites because i saw little black dots at the bottom of the waterbowl, i tryed crushing em but not much result..... and I also often find him leaning/rubbing ( not quite sure) agaisnt the glass rising at nearly his full length and quite of slowly dropping down a bit. Could that be another indicator of mites?
Another really random question : the other day while i was cleaning the cage up a fly flew into it and was really a pain to get out. If ever it would have stayed a while would it be of any risk for the snake ?

[Vengeance]

If you are seeing little things at the bottom of the water dish I'll bet you it's mites. I had to same situation with my ball just a week or so ago. He was soaking for no reason, I was checking his water and it seemed like there was only debris from the substrate. then I kept noticing the same looking things in his dish day after day and finally i poked at one and it burst blood so I knew that it was mites.

I found this link very informative:

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/show....eatment <br />

It took care of my problem with one treatmeant, haven't seen him soak since. Since that was my biggest sign of the problem I can only assume at this point that the mites are gone. One mistake I made was that I soaked him in the nix, someone here mentioned that may not be a good idea because of the possibility of ingesting some of the solution. But you do need to get it from head to tail to make sure that all the mites are gone. Once good suggestion I got was to coat you hands in the solution then let your ball slide through your hands. I'm sure other people may have some other options, so if I missed something feel free to point it out.

[Gollum]

well i'll do the treatment. thx. But theres no nix around here ( france ) so I got info from the snake breeder ....

[mykee]

I would guess mites, but I also have a few balls that just like to soak for no reason. They've never had mites, but they're drawn to soaking occasionally.

[jfmoore]

Gollum – Yes, it’s possible that the rubbing behavior you described is due to the irritation caused by the mites. If it has gotten to that point, you should be able to see the mites on your snake. Look in particular around the eyes, in the mental groove down the chin, in the labial heat pits and on any of the white-colored areas where blood-engorged mites will stand out. If you (or anyone else here) would like me to send you a short paper surveying various mite treatments, send me an email through the contact form.

-Joan

[Gollum]

thx a lot. I'll try the treatment that the breeder told me for a start. Sure but the mite treatments on the paper require Us products ? Actually i did look a few times but I really didnt see any mites...