Ball Python Eye Problem

Hi, everyone,


I have not been doing my research in all the years that I have owned my ball python, and it seems like I have messed up on many things as far as proper care goes.


- I never monitored temperature and humidity.
- I housed him in a 60 gallon glass tank, which made it difficult to maintain proper temperature.
- I used heat lamps.


I live in San Fernando Valley, California and humidity is a huge problem here. I think, heat lamps dried out the habitat even more and eventually caused bad sheds and retained eyecaps.


The snake has never been shedding well because of poor humidity. I always had to soak it in a tub of water and help it shed the rest of the skin. It seems that eyecaps from the previous sheds have been retained and possibly infected. Here is the picture of what his eyes look like.


https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...223_073251.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...223_073305.jpg


A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I am doing something seriously wrong. After doing some research, I moved him to a 41 qt tub (He is 1580 gr and 123 cm). Humidity is closely monitored and stays around 50-60%. I used 11 in x 11 in UTH on one side of the cage and keep it around 94 deg F. I also started to use newspaper as substrate.


My plan is:


- Maintain proper humidity and temperature.
- Maintain sanitary conditions.
- Let him have a nice shed or two in hopes that this can heal and he can shed it all off.


Can you please let me know your honest opinion about what you see in these pictures, and give me some advice me on what I can do about this?


Thanks.

Well you can get fabulous set ups using tanks .. just needs a bit of research..

As regards the eye caps ... there are many ways to help ..


My preference is a 20 minute soak , don’t take your eye of it though unless it’s in a secured container..

Then I have a wet , rough textured towel ready and let the snake slither continually through the towel applying very , very gentle pressure to the head region and when it's head appears I simply cover it up with the towel and continue
Anyways after the soak any dead skin or retained eye-caps simply comes off on the towel ( has to be rough textured obviously .


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Newspaper is fine as substrate and it's what I use. In the winter my house can also get dry, so to bump up humidity I'll place a very shallow tub, like you would have for storing pens and pencils, in the snake's enclosure or tub, and put damp cypress mulch, spaghnum moss, coco, etc. in the smaller tub. That will increase humidity without having your snake lie on sopping wet newspaper, and if the snake wants to be wetter it will coil up in the shallow tub.

With the snake's eyes looking like that I would be trying for 70-80% humidity.

I will definitely try a shallow tub with moss. He is going into shed right now. Is it a good idea to just bump up humidity and wait to see if the snake sheds it off on its own, or show I do the soak and towel method right away?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slonny

I will definitely try a shallow tub with moss. He is going into shed right now. Is it a good idea to just bump up humidity and wait to see if the snake sheds it off on its own, or show I do the soak and towel method right away?

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Just give him a humid hide like I suggested above, and wait. The soak/towel method is used to remove stuck shed at the end of the shed cycle.

In addition to watching for clean eyes, make sure the tail tip sheds cleanly every time too. Stuck shed here will dry out, constrict the tail tip, cut off blood supply, and cause the tail tip to die. In a really bad case it can cause infection/sepsis and eventually kill the snake.

You definitely want to get the temps down too. 94 is too hot. You want to be aiming for a hot spot around 88-89.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Just give him a humid hide like I suggested above, and wait. The soak/towel method is used to remove stuck shed at the end of the shed cycle.

In addition to watching for clean eyes, make sure the tail tip sheds cleanly every time too. Stuck shed here will dry out, constrict the tail tip, cut off blood supply, and cause the tail tip to die. In a really bad case it can cause infection/sepsis and eventually kill the snake.

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That method is also great for removing retained eye caps gently and safely ...as I described


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