Snake having trouble shedding? Help!

Our ball pythons eye's were blue last Saturday (the 16th) and she has been having a hard time shedding. Her tank is kept at 55-60% humidity constantly and the temperature is always between 80-90 degrees. She had a few very small chips come off of her tail, but aside from that she is struggling to get her face started. We have been giving her warm baths every day to try to help her with it, and the past few days she seemed to be trying really hard to start it by rubbing her nose on everything constantly, but now she seems to not even being trying anymore like she has given up.

After we gave her a bath today she just rubbed her face on the substrate and on the side of the tank a few times and then gave up and retreated to her hide to sleep, not even trying to rub her face on the inside of it.

Is there any other way we can help her shed get started? She looks miserable and extremely wrinkly and is way overdue to shed.

How are you measuring temps and humidity?

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Originally Posted by swanson

Our ball pythons eye's were blue last Saturday (the 16th) and she has been having a hard time shedding. Her tank is kept at 55-60% humidity constantly and the temperature is always between 80-90 degrees. She had a few very small chips come off of her tail, but aside from that she is struggling to get her face started. We have been giving her warm baths every day to try to help her with it, and the past few days she seemed to be trying really hard to start it by rubbing her nose on everything constantly, but now she seems to not even being trying anymore like she has given up.

After we gave her a bath today she just rubbed her face on the substrate and on the side of the tank a few times and then gave up and retreated to her hide to sleep, not even trying to rub her face on the inside of it.

Is there any other way we can help her shed get started? She looks miserable and extremely wrinkly and is way overdue to shed.

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Were you giving her baths while she was in blue leading up to the shedding process?

Daily baths are not needed. Stop that and mist properly.

With that much trouble your humidity has not been as high as you think.

A good substrate, misting, and maybe some tweaks to the cage will get you on track. Tell more about the current cage and setup.

Placing moist moss in the hides will also help greatly. It makes the hides have higher humidity even in a cage struggling to hold it. Placing it in both hides and keeping it moist throughout the shed will work great.

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Originally Posted by KMG

Daily baths are not needed. Stop that and mist properly.

With that much trouble your humidity has not been as high as you think.

A good substrate, misting, and maybe some tweaks to the cage will get you on track. Tell more about the current cage and setup.

Placing moist moss in the hides will also help greatly. It makes the hides have higher humidity even in a cage struggling to hold it. Placing it in both hides and keeping it moist throughout the shed will work great.

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We have a 20 gallon tank, we haven't measured her but she is a little over a foot I'd guess. We have a hydrometer in the dead center of the back wall and a temperature gauge on her warm side of the cage, she has a little tree that she can climb and also hide under ontop of her heating pad, close by to that is her water bowl, her heating lamp is above both of those. The center of the cage just has a little skull prop from the pet store that she will crawl through every once in a while, and then on the far cool side is her basic log hide. The substrate we use is some aspen substrate marketed for hamsters (I've read there isn't a difference between the ones marketed towards snakes aside from the price, so we buy the hamster one. If there is a difference please let us know!) We keep a damp towel on top of the wire top to the cage to keep the humidity in and we mist the tank with a spray bottle full of water every hour or so.

Also I heard moss could risk giving her scale rot from being too humid? Is this true?

Here's a crappy picture of it: http://i.imgur.com/f7ndWCN.jpg?1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swanson

We have a 20 gallon tank, we haven't measured her but she is a little over a foot I'd guess. We have a hydrometer in the dead center of the back wall and a temperature gauge on her warm side of the cage, she has a little tree that she can climb and also hide under ontop of her heating pad, close by to that is her water bowl, her heating lamp is above both of those. The center of the cage just has a little skull prop from the pet store that she will crawl through every once in a while, and then on the far cool side is her basic log hide. The substrate we use is some aspen substrate marketed for hamsters (I've read there isn't a difference between the ones marketed towards snakes aside from the price, so we buy the hamster one. If there is a difference please let us know!) We keep a damp towel on top of the wire top to the cage to keep the humidity in and we mist the tank with a spray bottle full of water every hour or so.

Also I heard moss could risk giving her scale rot from being too humid? Is this true?

Here's a crappy picture of it: http://i.imgur.com/f7ndWCN.jpg?1

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You do have a thermostat on the uth?

I have used moist moss for years without issue. I keep it moist during a shed but during non shed times I allow it to dry out before making it moist again.

Aspen is not a very good choice as it does not hold humidity well. I like cypress mulch. I actually use a mixture of cypress, eco earth, and repti bark in most of my cages.

Switching the substrate and adding some moss should help you a lot.

Placing a damp towel on top of the screen will cause the mesh to rust over time. A better option may be cutting a insert to place on it instead. I cut cardboard and then wrapped it with foil to place on my large glass tank. It works just fine.

Analog hygrometers are notorious for being inaccurate. It may be that or it may be their placement. The gauges will serve you best low where the snake is. They should be just an inch or so from the substrate.

the towl isnt really trapping humidity all the towl will do is absorb it, cover the top in aluminum foil works much much better because it cant absorb moisture, i have a 20 gallon and a 38x18x18 i use aspen and do the foil treatment to the wntire screened top, leaving an opening for the light and a little vent hole over the cool side... i mist once maybe twice a week now

I saw a video on YouTube about humidity. I haven't tried it since I'm going to switch mine to the tub setup. But what this lady did was get 4mm vinyl sheeting & tape it to the mesh top

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CfxerxKK9mo

Humid hide + limiting ventilation is the best way to control humidity levels. Even a small amount of water, usually enough from a large water bowl will keep a tank humid if you limit 90 percent of ventilation. You don't need to switch out substrate. Just provide the humid hide during sheds and keep the ventilation to a minimum and you can easily keep humidity in the 60% range with random misting.

That thermometer probe on the left side is doing nothing you need it to do.
It should be on the glass above the uth that I hope is properly regulated.