suspected mites...

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Originally Posted by SnakeEyes

I can get some PAM tomorrow afternoon at my pet shop, think it would be ok to let him soak tonight if that makes him feel better?

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For ONE night it should give him some relief, but get it treated right away. Then keep his water dish out of there for a couple days after you treat the cage, he will be forced to lay on the treated bedding and not in the water. ;)

you also suggest to put the aspen in and dump the mulch and then treat it? and how come I can never see any on him, ever, and its only in his water.

Sometimes mites can be hard to see, he might have been keeping the numbers down by soaking. The best spot to see them is usuaully right under their chin. Hold him up above your head and look under his scales(from the back of his head towards the front of his chin), just look, don't push on the scales. You sometimes will see little black "lumps" under his scales.

could this also explain why he hasn't "unloaded" since I got him?

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Originally Posted by SnakeEyes

you also suggest to put the aspen in and dump the mulch and then treat it? and how come I can never see any on him, ever, and its only in his water.

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you will need to completely clean the cage and put new bedding in before you treat it. When you find them in the water they are the ones that "washed" off or died from being submerged. When mites get there fill of blood they leave the host to lay eggs in the cage etc. It might not be a severe case yet, but if its not treated, it will be.

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Originally Posted by SnakeEyes

could this also explain why he hasn't "unloaded" since I got him?

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They don't always go on a regular basis. As long as your husbandry is right, he will do the deed when he's ready. ;)

Bill already said what I was going to about soaking, that it keeps the mites down, and personally there are very few reasons I would ever take away my bps water, even if it is soaking. This is usually a good indicator something is wrong and once that's corrected they'll stop. Just make sure you take the water out to treat the cage, PAM is extremely toxic, it even kills roaches in seconds.
I also would suggest that if you do have mites, don't bother with aspen or mulch, the easiest thing to do is lay down paper towels as substrate so that you can see the mites if they crawl off him, or die and fall off. But then again that's personal preference.
And yeah, they go when they go, at least he's not a blood python.

One more thing, use PAM sparingly (sp?), a very little goes a long way. Just treat your bedding with it and not the snake, let the cage air out for, AT LEAST, the recommended time on the can. Just treat the cage once a month for 3 months and you shouldn't have anymore problems. ;)

hes all coiled up around his fake plant not knowing where the hell is bowl is. gonna add it back in here in a bit. I dont like newspaper for two reasons. I dont like how it looks and I would think that bedding feels better then flat paper.

Think I would be ok with aspen and PAM?

it would be fine, its just that you'll never know if you've killed all of them, the aspen may offer places to hide away from tha PAM and then you'll get reinfested. I only meant to use it for a short time while you treat your snake for mites. It really is much easier.