Hi, I am wondering if anyone can shed some light on this issue I am having with a chain pet store that sells ball pythons, PETCO.... some one who works there and supposedly has several of these snakes advised me recently to bathe the snake in vinegar water as a means of ridding the snake and its cage of the mites. I cannot find out anything on line about spraying the cage and submerging the snake in vinegar water as a means of treating and preventing mites. I am not sure what vinegar does to a snake. Is toxic or poisonous to them??? I cannot imagine why some one working as a "snake expert" in a chain pet store would advise doing some thing to a snake that was not suitable. Please let me know if you have ever heard of this vinegar bit.

I was also advised upon entering the pet store not 2 hours after spotting a mite on my new baby pet snake, Diamond, against purchasing their commercial mite product and that it would not work but that vinegar water is the best way to solve the problem of the mites.

I think that the mouse I bought from them had a disease or mites, the employee also stated that a mouse was a possible source of the infestation. My snake ate its first meal after weeks of not eating anything when offered and was fine before I fed it that mouse. After that is when I began to notice that it seemed sick. It had diarrhea and was leaking several times a day, there was also like some lump thing toward the end of its tail. I am thinking that maybe it was a cluster of mites or eggs or some thing. I just don't know where the mites might have come from because I had the snake several weeks and did not notice a mite until after it ate.

I read earlier on a blog post some where that snakes can be poisoned from eating mice that have been over treated for pestilence or sprayed for any kind of diseases or mites or some thing before being sold to the public.


Please let me know if you can provide any insight here as I am very fond of Diamond.


Thank you,

Mi.