How long should a shed take?
My ball python, who is about 2 and a half years old, has been in shed for almost 14 days. He has never taken this long before and i am starting to worry. In the past he has has trouble with full sheds, but has never taken more than 10 or 11 days to fully shed. I considered day one of his shed to be when his belly began to turn pink. On day 3 when i checked up on him his eyes were blue-ing and the pink was gone. He stayed like this untill around day 8 or 9 (i couldn't get a good look at his head before this as he was quite shy and i didn't want to stress him).On day 11 i took him out for 20 minutes or so and he still seemed shy, but his eyes were cleared up. Normally after this his shed would finish. But this is now day 14 since i noticed the pink belly and he still has not shed. Although his skin does still look more faded than normal.
I've kept his humidity in the 60-70% range (i work long hours so a few days it fell to 50 before i could get home to adjust it). He has a temperature of 90-95 on his warm side (the high for my 24h cycle was 97 on a warm day) and his cool side is 78-84. His cold side hasn't fallen below 78. Im still using the same substrate since the day i got him. I've only tried bathing him to help shedding once, and his reaction has strongly deterred me from trying it again. But his water bowl is more than large enough for him to soak inside of and i have on occasion seen him partially soak in it.
This is my first snake and I'm rather concerned about this. Has anyone else experienced this? Could something be affecting his ability to shed? Any help of information would be greatly appreciated.
Re: How long should a shed take?
Thank you for that great video ricky. But my issue is that he has gone through all the steps except for the actual shedding of the old skin. Not even partially. Im wondering if i should worry that he has been in the shed cycle for much longer than normal.
