Blisters on bp's skin?

[Socrates]

I have a question too. I just noticed a few little blisters on our ball python's skin. Does anyone know anything about this?

[led4urhead]

Socrates, i split your question from that topic as it was a bit off topic.

Welcome to the forum, glad to have ya around .

You might want to give this topic a read. It should provide you with some more information as to what they are and what you can do. I would definitely suggest a vet trip. Can you tell us a bit about your setup?

[Socrates]

Thanks for your reply. I'm completely new to snake care. My son went off to college & left me with his Ball python. He/she seems healthy, and has grown quite a bit in the past few months He's about 2' long. I believe it's a 10 gal tank, wood chips on the bottom, water dish in one corner, fake plant, large log, stone 'house'. We heat with a 40 watt bulb & the temperature is 75 at the moment. I just noticed a few small blisters on his back. We live in a dry climate & it's rather cool at night. I have no idea how often to clean his cage. He seems to shed on a regular basis. My only instructions were to mist the tank with a spray bottle now & then & feed him a mouse once a week.

[Cody]

Sorry to hear about your predicament.

You definitely need to raise the heat. A ball python needs a warm side and a cool side in their cage. The warm side should be 90-95 degrees and cool side should be 80-85 degrees. Their humidity should be around 55-60%. And for a two foot snake, a 10 gallon tank is rather cramped. I have my two foot ball python in a 20 gallon, and she's already too big for it. I'm working on moving her into a 3 foot by 2 foot rubbermaid container.

To solve these husbandry problems, it'll cost you a bit of money. But it's worth it to have a happy and healthy snake. First, go to Walmart or Target or something like that, and look for a human heat pad. It usually doesn't matter what brand, as long as it has some temperature settings, and doesn't have an auto-shutoff function. I can assume your son also had those stickon thermometers too, so you might want to look into a digital thermometer with probe. Much more accurate. If you can, look for the Acurite digital thermometer with probe. It'll have two temperature readings, and a humidity reading, with a wire probe so you can measure the heat on both the warm and cool side. It'll look similar to this. You also might want to get him a bigger cage. I know aquariums can be expensive, so I suggest just picking up a sterilite/rubbermaid container that have the dimensions of 3x2 or so. This will give the snake ample space to stretch out. Then all you have to do is drill some holes in the sides for air circulation. With the heat pad, digital thermometer, higher temperatures, and larger cage, the snake will be much better off. I'm glad you agreed to watch over the snake while your son is gone. I don't know of many parents that would take over that job. I know my mom sure wouldn't.

As for the blisters, it could be scale rot or something like that. I also recommend a vet visit to take care of that.

Good luck.


Edit: Oh, and you mentioned wood chips. Do you know off the top of your head what kind of wood chips they are? I'm asking because cedar and pine is toxic to snakes. Even if they are safe wood chips, it might not be a bad idea to switch the wood chips with just newspaper. A cleaner and dryer substrate is probably best with blisters.

[Schlyne]

Yeah, it would probably be better to swap to paper towels or newspaper (although I think it'd go to the paper towels) until the blisters heal up.