My girlfriend and I are new ball python owners. Ever since purchasing it, we've been having problems with it. We have received a barrage of information from many different sources about how to take care of our ball, but a lot of the information has been conflicting. The snake has been through a lot as the subject of our experimenting and learning and does not seem to be doing so well, and I feel bad for the little guy. I've come here today to explain the condition he's in, and get specific information to my particular case on how to treat him and keep him healthy in the future.

At current we have owned him for 6 weeks or so, he's an estimated 6 months old, 18 inches long, has only eaten one pinky in the time we've owned him during an assist feed that was precipitated by someone telling us that was a good route to go. He now also has mites. I've ordered the mite treatment including provent-a-mite from lllreptiles. Until that arrives we've been keeping him in a tub (usually he's in a terrarium with aspen snake bedding substrate) on newspaper at around 60% humidity with a UTH at about 95 degrees at his basking spot, 73 degrees ambient. We've been giving him a luke warm water bath once ever 2 days for about 30 minutes to control the mites for the time being. It's the best we can do while we wait to spray him and the terrarium. Aside from the mites, we're worried that he's getting skinny and isn't going to eat due to all the stress he's been through: having been assist fed, mites, and changing environments.

We don't want to lose our little guy. We want to clear up his mites, and leave him be under ideal conditions in his terrarium for a couple weeks without being bothered, and then get him eating regularly. Given our situation, what is the best route to take to get him on the road to health? Most specifically, should we assist feed him at all? A reptile expert that I work with has given me information that is completely opposite of everything everyone else has told me. "Never assist feed, and humidity shouldn't be higher than 20%"

Like I said, information overload!! And poor snake!