Bluuuue eyes... babys got bluuue eyes....

[Krynos]

/pace
/worry
/concerned

Last night I went to get Cleo out of her viv, room was pretty dim. Removed her hide, picked her up. Noticed she was a little squirmy in my hands, not calm like usual. Took about 4 steps and noticed as I got into better light that her eyes were blue! and she was very dull looking.

Put her straight back in her viv.

This will be her first shed with us.... so needless to say we are both suffering from "oh no what do we do what do we do what do we do are we doing all we can to help hows the humidity is there enough rough things in there is she okay is she happy what to do what to do...."

Of course we've done lots of research in anticipation of this, but still can't help but be nervous and concerned lol.

Humidity is stable at 60%, and we're now misting (rises to 80% for a couple of hours then drops back to 60%). We're planning on misting 4 times a day, early in the morning, lunchtime, evening (5ish) and night (11ish).

From what I have read we should see her blue for 5-7 days, then clear eyes but dull for a couple of days, then shed. Just writing it out here all you experienced folks can check on us and make sure we're not making goofs.

Her viv has plenty of rough areas, hides are the ceramic rock things, there are some branches and one of the silk plants is embedded in a nice rough rock.

We're prepared to soak if her shed is looking difficult, and we're going to be ready with warm damp towels for her to slither though.

Tonight is her scheduled feeding time, and we're going to offer and see if she is interested. Being as so far she's proving to to be more of a Piggy Python than a Ball Python I'm expecting she'll eat, but we'll see.

Once she clears from blue thats the time to crank up the humidity and try to keep it at a constant 70-80% right? (rather than the current gone blue mist 4 times a day approach) Planning to do that some spagnum, misting and warm wet paper towels as needed.

With luck she will poop too, 5 mice in there since she last went (6 if she eats tonight), so I'll amend her description to the Biggus-Butted-Piggieous-Pythonii (latin never was my strong point )

[rabernet]

While each ball python has their own time-frame, my experience with Kashmire has been that once his eyes turn clear, he sheds within 48 hours.


Kashmire will start with a pink belly, then five days later, blue eyes. Two days later to clear and two days after that to shed. I start bumping the humidity up to 70 % once I see the pink belly.

Incidentally, as I was changing water and straitening out hides for the girls last night, two of them are in the pink belly stage. The third may be too, but I didn't really have to re-arrange her hides, so I didn't actually touch her to see.

At this time, I'm loving the tubs!

Let us know how the shed goes!

[frankykeno]

First shed stress syndrome....there it has a name LOL.

We normally bump our ball pythons enclosures up from 50-60% to 70% from the moment we see a pink belly or blue eyes until they have completed the whole shed process then let the humidity drop back to normal.

Your snake may eat or not eat during shed, they are all different that way but if you get a refusal don't worry just wait till the next scheduled feeding day to offer again.

Most of our snakes become even more secretive when in shed cycle and just don't want to be bugged by us irritating human beings LOL.

Good luck with the shed. Let us know how it goes.


~~Jo~~

[elevatethis]

If you've got a true reading of 60% humidity, you must do this immediately: Go to your living room, crack open a cold one, and don't worry one ounce.

[cassandra]

If you've got a true reading of 60% humidity, you must do this immediately: Go to your living room, crack open a cold one, and don't worry one ounce.

I like this plan...still tho..we've both got serious FSSS!

[rabernet]

If you've got a true reading of 60% humidity, you must do this immediately: Go to your living room, crack open a cold one, and don't worry one ounce.

Now THAT'S some of the best advice I've seen here!

[Krynos]

Well she did feed last night - piggius pythonious strikes again lol.

She was very timid while feeding though, clearly having trouble due to her reduced vision.

Of course she then caused us no end of problems after... As per usual I'd removed the hide she was in before feeding (cool side). Now normally once she has eaten she goes looking around for more mousie... once she decides there is no more dinner she'll go into the remaining hide. at this point I can put the cool hide back in.

But not this time... she stayed put on the cool side. Clearly not wanting to move, she would stretch her neck out and check out the surrounding area, but wouldn't move out from the shadow of the coolside plant.

She did eventually go across to the warm side but it took hours for her to pluck up the courage to do it. Poor thing.

We bought a pack of Spagum moss, and we moistened some and put it at strategic locations in the Viv. Humidity spiked up to 90% but by morning was down to 75%. This seems to be a good way for us to maintain the higher humidity

I'll be much happier when she's done her shed and is back to her normal self.