Crowleys second shed?

[shhhli]

We were completely baffled as to why this very docile snake was so angsty the past few days. i passed it off as him smelling food and getting excited, but he was so weird even i was really bothered. yesterday he was still giving off an evil aura.
well today, a full 48+, i gutted up to get him out to clean his cage.
i saw a bit of 'shed' and i tripped out really hard- i started yelling DID HE EAT A SNAKE!? WHATS GOING ON, because i was worried+afraid of what was going on with him.
after carefully removing him, he had been balled ontop of a white and brown/gray mash- i thought "great he's thrown up his meal" even though it had been two days. as im looking at the skin around this 'blob' i notice 1) crowley seems thinner than ever 2)his colors were very... strong..
Tony took a fork (yes a fork) and poked the mass, it turns out it was a shed-
we got him thursday of last week while he was shedding! now i must admit for the past year he has lived in a 72 gal with no humidity .. none .. apparently because the black i saw was his shed. i think he just had an old shed stuck to him from last month or so prehaps and was now shedding again due to proper temperatures.
he's now VERY vibrant in his colors as compared to this past week and back to his docile inquisitive self.
meow.

btw- his eyecaps came off.

[tigerlily]

When my bps go into shed, they are a bit more nervous. It just goes with the territory.

The shed ball was black? Did I get that right? Whoa. You should take some pics. Never seen that before. I'm glad to hear that the eyecaps came off, that sounds good. Congrats on the shed.

Ok, this is a pet peeve of mine, but I just hate when people use the word evil with their pets. I'm sure you were trying to convey a difference in the behavior but it just comes out wrong. Animals are not evil, they're just animals.

[Jeanne]

My thoughts are, what they are describing was feces caught within the shed itself................ I know my snakes go when they shed.

[tigerlily]

Oh that's very likely. I was picturing this black shed ball.

[shhhli]

im sorry to offend you about the evil bit. if i call anyone/anything evil its never ment seriously. but im sure it still irks you none the less.

i just wish i had known it was another shed, otherwise i wouldnt have been so tripped out.

its not so much black as brown and grey. some of it could be fecal matter but some of it distinctly was brown from the dusty substrate he was on. we put the skin in a bag because i HAD to have a picture of it. unfortunatly the batteries were dead in the camera.

[tigerlily]

I kinda figured it wasn't intended that way, but with it being on a public forum and being read by all sorts of newbs I just wanted to clarify that issue. *shrug*

You know you are true herper when.... you save shed/poo so you can take a picture of it.

[frankykeno]

Unless I'm reading it all wrong, the snake shed twice within a week? Perhaps it was just the same shed that was coming off in bits and pieces due to it's previously bad husbandry? Just wondering what substrate you have it on now?



~~Jo~~

[shhhli]

I have no idea what it was previously. it was like, small rounded pieces of bark- similar to what some people put out as a plant border in their yards. it was rather dusty and a pain of a time cleaning the tank out.

currently he's on newspaper

the first shed (when we got him) was a full shed (and by that i mean fully on his body except for bits and pieces and belly). i did get him a soak and rubbed off what was all of it, to my knowledge. instead of looking like a snake put into a shed, he appeared to have lost it all excluding the eye caps.

this shed we found today was a full shed, i spotted all the various body parts of the shed (belly tail neck etc) (or from what i could tell, like i said it was this giant balled up mass). it was all wadded into a ball that looked like some sort of deformed egg swaddled in grey/brown gauze. I REALLY wish i had moved the shed instead of tony and could have preserved it better. it was the weirdest thing i have ever seen in my life. that- and he was coiled around it in his hide like a prize or something. today was Very interesting. honestly, were you to compare Crowley to Day-Before-Feed when we thought all of the shed had been removed to Crowley-Now. his colors are bright and clear.

lol- when i had my 1st corn, i pressed his first shed (that i had of him). i was all *awwwwww* it was so tiney and cute.

[frankykeno]

Sometimes back to back shedding indicates a mite infestation (I've never had a snake with mites so please do take this for what it is...second hand info). Also perhaps a lot of retained shed so the snake is now brighter as it's finally got the whole mess off. Hard to say really but if he continues to shed more than is normal I would follow up on that with your herp vet.

I rarely see a perfect keep it for a keepsake type shed LOL. My snakes tend to either shed in their hides so it's all balled up or have a lovely dump either in the shed or beside it...blech! Oh well if it all comes off without me or Mike having to mess with the snake...we call it good LOL

~~Jo~~