Relatively new BP keeper here. I have an 18 mo old Banana Pewter male who I got about a month ago. For the first 2 weeks he wouldn’t eat, but he’s eaten for two weeks in a row since. He weighs 288 grams, and hasn’t shed for me yet, and I expect he won’t for a while. He is active and super friendly. He likes to hang out in his water bowl, quite a bit. The temp in his enclosure is 86-92 on the warm side and 80-76 on the cool side. Humidity is hard to get up to the correct level because the heat is on in the house, I can only get it to about 65% for a high and sometimes it plunges to 25%. The substrate is a combo of coconut husk, mulch, and a little bit of moss. The top layer of the substrate is relatively dry. Despite this, I noticed today that he had a mark under his mouth that resembles scale rot. He doesn’t generally keep his mouth in the water when he sits in his water bowl, but I’m super worried that he has scale rot (see pics). I cleaned his enclosure and replaced all the substrate. But I am worried. He also was around my other BPs and I am wondering if scale rot is contagious and if the spot in the pic is bad enough to go to the vet for this weekend?
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He only has that one spot, the rest of his scales are completely normal. The other thing I was concerned about was when I fed him on Monday he really went for the f/t rat pup with great enthusiasm and I was wondering if he could have injured his mouth doing that? If it’s scale rot, can I treat it at home? If it’s an injury does it need treatment?
Thanks in advance.
Edited- I didn’t add the pics correctly so they are in the comments.
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It’s a little hard to say because there can be a few reasons for this.
firstly… the temps are a bit too much. He can be soaking as an attempt to cool down.
The hot spot for basking is okay to be at 88-90. The air temps on the warm side should not be over 86.
The mark on his chin isn’t anything I would be too concerned with at the moment as long as there’s no other symptoms. Sometimes I see a little mark like that after one of mine has a particularly busy night rearranging their habitats. But you definitely want to keep an eye on it. If it worsens you would most likely want to see a vet since it’s a difficult spot to treat. That can be something like bubbling at the mouth or trying to hold his head up to breathe easier. Sometimes when they get a URI they will try to rub away mucus since they can’t sneeze
Which is where my next concern would be. There’s a particular black spot in the space between the scales on the injury photo. And maybe some debris in the area around the skin fold in the middle. It would make me consider checking for mites. They’re little bugs that will settle around the scales on the eyes and mouth of ball pythons and suck their blood. Because they’re irritating, a lot of snakes will hang out in the water dish to get rid of them…or dig around in the substrate to try dislodging them. Bananas get the little black spots on them, so sometimes it can be a little difficult to ID them right away for new keepers…but you can take a damp paper towel and let the snake slither through it. If there’s black spots on it, check for movement first for the obvious confirmation. if it’s not, try crushing one and if it turns the paper red, you most likely have mites.
You can check around the edges of the water bowl for them too cause they’ll sometimes be crawling around after the snake rinses them off.
Mites are very contagious and can infect a whole collection if not properly treated. They can also carry diseases. So that would be a concern to bring your snake to a qualified reptile vet sooner than later. If you aren’t familiar with how to treat, the chemicals can be dangerous to use.
Also as a general heads up, quarantining new animals away from your already establish animals is definitely something I would recommend getting into the habit of. This means keeping them in a different room and using different tools/hides and such which will not be transferred around to your other animals. I like to keep mine isolated for 90 days out of habit personally. Some will say a shorter qt period is fine but the recommendation is always at least a month.
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Thank you. I took all my BPs to the vet the week I got him and none of them had any concerns, no mites, all good weights, etc. he hasn’t been anywhere else since then, but I don’t know if mites can live in packaged substrate, is that possible? I have checked every inch of him and he has no other spots that aren’t just his banana spots. I did wipe them all off with a paper towel just now and I didn’t see anything. I feel as anxious as I did when my kids were babies 
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Judging from what you say that you have indeed taken the BP to the vet when you got it and came out with a clean bill of health I’d say this is either a rub injury or mild scale rot.
If you have not seen any mites or signs of mites I don’t think your BP has them, and I’ve never heard of cases of snakes getting mites from packaged substrate unless it was taken from an infected snake’s enclosure and packaged to resell which no one does. Snakes mainly get snake mites from exposure to other infected snakes or things infected snakes have come in contact with.
You still definitely should keep an eye on this spot though and check on the underside area of the BP often to make sure it isn’t showing up elsewhere. If the mouth area worsens this will warrant another vet visit. The snake soaking may be an attempt to stay hydrated whenever your humidity levels drop.
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I’m definitely keeping an eye on him and his little chin. He ate a large rat pup on Monday and he was dragging his body upright against a piece of driftwood as he swallowed. Maybe?
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