Bal Python 'not trying' to shed?

[cheosamad]

So this might be a little weird. Pennywise has been deep in shed and finally started to get it off 2 days ago. His head shed completely in on pieces eye caps and all. But since then he has just sat in his hide and hasnt moved so he's just had his piece of shed sitting on him and the rest of his body hasnt shed.

I had to clean his cage today (he peed and pooped A LOT) so I grabbed a picture. Is there anything I should he doing or should I just let him handle it?



Edit- I realize this is the single worst picture ever lol. My apologies.

[BPGator]

I'm having trouble following what's happening. Are you saying he shed the scales from his head 2 days ago but the rest has been near his neck (like in the picture) since then?


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[the_rotten1]

I haven't had any problems with my ball pythons shedding, but my hognose had some stuck shed once. I gave her a nice soak and then scrubbed softly with a tooth brush. Worked like a charm.

[cheosamad]

I'm having trouble following what's happening. Are you saying he shed the scales from his head 2 days ago but the rest has been near his neck (like in the picture) since then?


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His head is ALL that he has shed. The entire rest of his body is still attatched, and he literally is like a pet rock so he hasnt been moving trying to get it off. All 3 of my other snakes shed in the past month with no issues so i know his humidity is good especially since ive bumped it since he went into blue.

Also theres some typos on the initial post but since I cant edit it after 10 minutes I cant fix them. Basically was just stating his head shed fine in one piece with the eye caps and everything.



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[cchardwick]

What kind of substrate do you have him on, what is the humidity and temp? I struggled with sheds on aspen and paper towels / newspaper. I'm finally having good sheds on Reptichip since it really holds the moisture all week. If he started shedding when your substrate was dry even switching to a humid substrate may not help, you'll have to get a plastic tote with warm water (just warm to the touch) and fill it about two inches on the bottom. Then put him in and try to keep him in there for about five minutes. Then his shed should just slide off if you rub it with your fingers. I did that with my six foot dwarf albino reticulated python, worked like a charm. If it doesn't all come off within five minutes I'd put him back in his enclosure and try again the following day.

[cheosamad]

What kind of substrate do you have him on, what is the humidity and temp? I struggled with sheds on aspen and paper towels / newspaper. I'm finally having good sheds on Reptichip since it really holds the moisture all week. If he started shedding when your substrate was dry even switching to a humid substrate may not help, you'll have to get a plastic tote with warm water (just warm to the touch) and fill it about two inches on the bottom. Then put him in and try to keep him in there for about five minutes. Then his shed should just slide off if you rub it with your fingers. I did that with my six foot dwarf albino reticulated python, worked like a charm. If it doesn't all come off within five minutes I'd put him back in his enclosure and try again the following day.

I woke up this morning to a happy complete shed! So he was just being a weirdo as he often is.

Anyway. Substrate is paper towel so maybe its time for a switch. Anyway. Hot spot 89 degrees as per temp gun this morning and they get misted down every second day. Still having trouble with my ambient temps as they're only at 70 degrees. I'm moving in 2 months and the snakes will have their own room with a space heater so that should help.

We've been having good results so far with this setup. Everyones been shedding in one piece. My male and female have both recently gone off of food so they've just been getting offered a frozen rat once a week. I' m gonna weigh them next friday to make sure they're not losing weight. Hopefully them being off food ends up being a good time to get them off of live but we'll see.


Edit-wow okay so talk about timing. My big female is back in shed. Seems REALLY fast but I just went to feed her and found her deep in blue. She wasnt even showing signs last monday but she just shed like a few weeks ago so im surprised to see her this deep in again. Is it weird for a snake to shed back to back like that?

NOTE she did just go from small to medium rats about 2 weeks ago so that meal size increase could be the cause.