HELP with my new BP

First of all hello everyone.


10 days ago me and my wifey bought another BP. This time high white piebald male. It's not the first snake but it is the first one I'm experiencing problems with.


The first thing that bothers me, it seems like he's not interested or just has no idea on how to shed. He shedded like a week from when he was bought. It was a totally bad shed. Most of the old skin is/was still left on him. Only on belly it was removed by slithering around his terrarium. I have no idea why he was like that. My other snake are vicious when it comes to rubbing their old skin, but not this one, like he wasn't even interested or bothered with shedding itself. We soaked him in a lukewarm water and managed to gently rub out most of the bad shed, except around his head that we didn't have will to molest him any more. He has some bad shed stuck on his left side over one eye top half of head and some neck. The temperatures and humidity was about right the whole time. 90-92F hotspot and 70-74% of humidity. That always worked with other snakes. Mainly no bad sheds. Is it possible that snake doesn't know how to shed? Can I do something about that? I've helped him as much it was possible and I was allowed but still that's not a way to go.


And now for the biggest problem I have with my new addition. There are some weird black spots under his scales. I just can't describe it. It doesn't seem to be ticks or mites, nothing was found on paper towels. I hope the attached pictures will be some help to you and it can be diagnosed. At the sale he was supposed to be healthy. He is in a quarantine of course. There's not may of them. Roughly i would say 3-5 spots like this.

http://shrani.si/f/1o/uJ/4Dr9PxhU/timg3072.jpg

http://shrani.si/f/1g/W6/4CnVfl1F/timg3073.jpg

http://shrani.si/f/a/Ku/5BNzcyL/timg3075.jpg

http://shrani.si/f/z/lj/3xaj1WMG/timg3078.jpg

http://shrani.si/f/1s/96/1VTTzevZ/timg3079.jpg

http://shrani.si/f/32/yj/2mXrLQM4/timg3080.jpg


I hope anyone can help me with him, and primarily that he will be OK and a happy snake like the other are. He's a cute snake, afraid of everything but is nosy and likes to check on things and happenings around him ;)

Best regards to everyone and thanks for any possible help :D

Sometimes bad sheds happen - I would get a reliable humidity gauge if it says 70% and he had a bad shed. That is not likely to be accurate.

For the black spots, Pieds get that sometimes but from the pictures it does look like a dead scale or a little scab. Maybe it's a small scab from the bad shed, pulling off skin from scales that are still sensitive. I'd give those a week or two and see if there is change before worrying.

I dont know if this may sound crazy or not but in my eyes that looks like a possible mite??? I know in the post you stated it does not look like it but sometimes they are still hatching mites and they can be that small i had the same issue at work with an albino it looked kinda like a freckle and after a few soakings they were gone. So in my opinion not sure if it will help or not soak her in some warm water and see if it works or not?

I've had two gauges and they are both digital. It seems. One was from a other snake in which im confident since he had complete sheds. And even if it's wrong I've used technics to raise humidity with bigger bowl, damp towels etc. If it could be wrong the actual humidity would be higher not lower. But i must say this again he didn't look interested to shed. My other python does whatnot to remove skin this one hardly shower any interest...

Skin was not pulled from him. What he didn't remove by himself we only rubbed it gently off with a damp towel after some soaking . Hardly any pressure was a used.

These black spots seem more like something is under the scale rather than the scale itself?

He was soaked yesterday while trying to help him with removing stuck shed. Haven't found nothing in the towel or in the water.

So you think I should soak him again? Should i also use a bought solution in a spray for removing mites?

I would say yes buy prevent-a-mite not that expensive and it works and even if its not a mite its always good to have it just in case. Another yes to the soaking try to soak the snake for about 10 minutes just make sure that water stays warm i usually use a little container with a lid and some holes and it works. I honestly believe those black "dots" has nothing to do with shed, the sheds issues are usually scale rot or stuck shed etc and that spot is not missing any scales the spot/issue is under the scale. Therefore don't worry about the shed that spot is something different. Once again my guess is mite.

What substrate do you use? and do you feed live or F/T?

Those are snake ticks, not mites, they look identical to tick, and they burry there head under the scale. IT would be recomonded to do the Nix or PAM treatment, and keep him ont he paper towel, aswell spray around your other snakes, not inside there housing but around/outside

You can especially see in first picture, Where its round butt full of the snakes blood, dont pull them off, they are extremly hard to pull out, and there head can sometimes stay stuck under the skin, Just use a treatment as said. These could be casuing his "lazyness" as you've said OR simply because he is a pied, i have found most of them are a little more lazy then the other morphs.

They look like mites to me - which also burrow under the scales of a snake.

Those do look like ticks. I'm as certain as I can be without seeing the animal in person.