mites maybe???????

Hey I got a pair of het pieds about two months ago the male is about 600 grams and the female 750... The male has been soaking in his water bowl for about 4 days straight now. I will take him out to check if he is fine and make sure his scales aren't doing anything funky. However when i googled ball pythons doing this most people said it was due to mites or going to shed. the snake is showing no signs of shedding after four days no darker skin or blue eyes nothing that would indicate a shed so i'm worried he might have mites. I also googled images of mites and compared what came up with my snake and found (atleast what it seems to me) zero mites. Not in his water bowl, on him or on his cage... anyone know why he might be doing this, if they go into there water bowl this early before a shed? he hasn't shed since i've had him so it could be that? i just assumed he wouldn't considering his cage stays between 50% and 60% humidity and he also has a humidity box that i put in when i first noticed him doing it any input would be appreciated thanks

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Originally Posted by benwallage9

Hey I got a pair of het pieds about two months ago the male is about 600 grams and the female 750... The male has been soaking in his water bowl for about 4 days straight now. I will take him out to check if he is fine and make sure his scales aren't doing anything funky. However when i googled ball pythons doing this most people said it was due to mites or going to shed. the snake is showing no signs of shedding after four days no darker skin or blue eyes nothing that would indicate a shed so i'm worried he might have mites. I also googled images of mites and compared what came up with my snake and found (atleast what it seems to me) zero mites. Not in his water bowl, on him or on his cage... anyone know why he might be doing this, if they go into there water bowl this early before a shed? he hasn't shed since i've had him so it could be that? i just assumed he wouldn't considering his cage stays between 50% and 60% humidity and he also has a humidity box that i put in when i first noticed him doing it any input would be appreciated thanks

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What are your temps? Maybe he is trying to cool off? Maybe he's just special;) I saw in another thread where a male crammed himself in the water bowl after mating.

After temps I'd ask if it has enough good hides. If you haven't found mites on the snake or in the water bowl my next guesses would be a shed coming up, temps too high or he's using his bowl to "hide" in.


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id check temps first and since theyre small and depending who you got them from, they mightve offered them hides. I dont have hides on any of my bps and havnt had any issues. If no mites are found and temps and humidity are good then maybe you just got a soaker that likes to be in the water. I have one that did that all the time and eventually he got over it. Now he just uses his bowl to drink out of and thats it. Good luck.

I use an on/off thermostat that keeps the temps between 90 and 92 F. He has a nice half log hide on the warm side and a tubberware container on the cool side next to his water bowl

Although I'm no expert, everyone else says not to use half logs because it doesn't make BPs feel secure. They also say to use the same hides, so your BP doesn't have to choose between security or temperature. Hope this helped:)

Temps could cause it as previous replies have stated. When was the last time he ate and how big was the meal? I've also heard of BPs soaking after a particularly big meal... Just another thought... Or maybe you just have a guy who likes to swim...

I feed him last thursday a small rat... And I would think that the hides wouldn't be a problem cuz he just started doing his but again idk