shedding and humidity

[tanithvoslooo]

I have a 5 month old ball python, he shed a few weeks ago and we had to peel most of it off as it came off in bits, he is ready to shed again, his eyes have been blue for the past 4 days but i cant seem to get the humidity up in his viv. the temp is fine and i am using bark as a substrate. put a handful of fresh, damp bark in the other day and it went up to 77 but now its back to what it was 50. any suggestions please. was told you should never mist a balls viv a the snake doesnt like it. this is my first ball/ thanks

[200xth]

Try making him a humid hide. Take a hide, put some damp moss or something similar in it. It will create a much higher level of humidity in that hide. If your snake needs a humidity boost, he'll go into that hide.

[M.P.C]

Yup humidity hide and mist the cage... only time i notice misting bothers them is if you mist them... my pastels first shed was dry so i went and bought some zilla shed ease and gave her a nice soak in some warm water with the stuff added and then i took a towl and dampened it a little bit and let her slither threw it.... stuck shed came of real easy

[Skeletor]

What kind of cage is it ? My BP is going into his first shed with my as the owner, he's a young BP. His eyes changed blue a few days ago. I have a PVC cage and all I did was add a big bowl of wet moss to the inside of the cage. I'm at 60% humidity, ambient temps low 80's. I'll let you all know how it goes. I noticed a huge change in his behavior a few days before his eyes changed. He is staying mostly inside his warm hide or on top of it. His hide itself is hidden by branches. I'm just going to let him be until he's past the shed. I may skip a feeding because he seems like he wants to be left alone.

[kitedemon]

The part of humidity that is not discussed is that it is a % of the amount of humidity the air can hold a a specific temperature. The cooler the air is the lower the maximum amount of humidity possible it is.

These is a complex calculation to work this out but there is a crude calculation that works. every 2ºF below 80ºF the air is add 5%. Every 2ºF over 80ºF the air is subtract 5%.

If you have 60% RH @ 74ºF this is too low for a good shed. You should have closer to 75% RH. Make sense. Relative humidity is relative to temperature and varies greatly.

Humidity is a funny thing misting is rarely a fix just a short term bandaid. You need to increase the water surface area with enough water that it does not evapourate completely too fast. A large low water bowl is the easiest way. The second part of this is humid air rises. So the size and placements of vents will have a massive impact on the humidity.

Different substrates can hold and slowly release water to the air until they dry out. Cyprus is one but once dry it is hard to rehydrate it, Coco coir hold humidity for long periods of time and can be rehydrated.

I agree with the humid hide they work and are easy, you should only add one when shed is coming. they work perfectly well, I personally choose to address the humidity issues and try to at least get inside the 5% of an optimal target myself. i find snakes kept below the 10% off of optimal start to suffer mild dehydration I prefer not to have this occur.

[M.P.C]

I can vouch 100% on size and location of the vent being crucial... just covering the sreen top with foil and making a hole for the light will still give you humidity problems... threw alot of trial and error ive found a half inch space around the light and narrow slit at the cold end of the tank helps amazingly once you get the size's rite... i was misting once or twice a day before i got the sizes and locations rite.... now i have to mist maybe once a week and even when i do that its only because the humidity fell a little out of range

[JoshSloane]

Humid hide and you will have a perfect shed every single time.

[Sauzo]

I keep all my snakes at around 50-60% humidity with hot side of 87F and cool side of 82F and they all shed 1 piece like a rolled up sock. And this is on aspen as well. If the snake is healthy and not messed with during shed time as in don't pick it up and handle it and stuff(I am a person who does believe in handling a snake in blue will mess up its shed as you are compressing the fluids between the 2 skins and messing it up), it should have a fine shed in 50% humidity. Although if you are bent on having high humidity, the best time to raise it is right after they come out of blue.

[Skeletor]

Great info Kitedemon....I'm saving that in my notes. I recently had my first shed and it was very successful, thanks to all the great information I gathered from the forum. When my BP's eyes blued... I added a bowl of damp moss inside his cage. I never saw him use it but I noticed it was matted down and I found a slight trace of the moss between that and the water bowl, also in his water bowl. So he did use it. The humidity in the cage was easy to keep at sixty with the moss in there. Everything that people said would happen....happened exactly that way.

[Skeletor]

Question....my cool side ambient temp is a little lower than my warm side ambient temp. If I take an average of the 2 it comes out to 79.5 degrees F. I kept my humidity at 60 the best I could during the shed....was this ok to take an average of my ambient temp readings or should it be taken from the hot side or the cool side only ?