Hey all,

I recently got a new Pueblan Milksnake, a tad older than a year. I got her from the breeder/pet shop where I get all of my feeders from. I gave her about 5 days to settle in and decided to see if she would take a fuzzy yesterday, which she did with no problem.

I recognize the species is pretty flighty, especially when young and she has definitely ran from me when I enter the room and when I removed her from the aquarium to move her furniture for feeding. Completely normal behavior.

After she ate her mouse I came home to find her soaking in her water bowl. I thought it was a little weird since she had just eaten and I keep her water on the cool side, but I don't have much colubrid experience and just shrugged and went about my business. She also made no attempt to run outside of tucking her head under water.

It's now been around 24 hours and she hasn't moved from the water bowl as far as I can tell. It seems extremely weird to me after a meal to be soaking in cool water.

I have her in a 10 gallon aquarium, UTH covering about 1/4 the tank maybe (small one) and a lamp in the middle of the tank that I turn off at night. Both are hooked up to a dimmer and I manually monitor and control the temps. I keep her hides on both ends. Under her warm hide it fluctuates between 85-90 as I change it a bit when the lamp is on. Cool side is usually around 73, maybe less at night. Middle of the aquarium is usually 77-80 when the lamp is on, drops to room temp at night. Humidity is room humidity, which I read was correct for the species since they are from arid climates.

I realize this could be a mite issue, especially with her being new, but if that is the case I truthfully don't know how to spot mites on an animal with a black head like her. So if any of you think that may be the issue advice on how to spot them on a Pueblan would be appreciated. I may just be overreacting but I wanted to make sure it's not a symptom of an underlying problem.

Thanks for your time and advice everyone.