Royal python in constant shed?

[shaundouglass135]

As in title, just checked my royal python and it's in blue for a third week in a row, it shed out last week and fed the day after, did the same the week beforehand, normal shed and no sign of mites? And advice?


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[scottishbluebird]

Any sign of an injury?

[shaundouglass135]

Originally Posted by scottishbluebird

Any sign of an injury?

None what so ever, given her a once over and she's looking fine


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[Central Scotland Reptiles]

If you are unable to see any external sign of injury or parasites then one must assume it is an internal issue.

I would suggest a visit to a suitably qualified vet.

[shaundouglass135]

Put a warm tub of water in its enclosure and it's went straight into it. Spotted a mite crawling away. Nightmare!


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[paulh]

Even with mites, the shed schedule seems too fast. The mites should be killed off, of course.

I never disagree with advice to see a good vet. My experience may be helpful, too.

I had a young corn snake that was shedding every two weeks. I got a bottle of liquid multivitamins for cage birds from the pet store. My brand was Avitron, made by Lambert-Kaye, but any liquid multivitamin made to add to cage bird water should be acceptable. Dosage was 1 drop in the opened belly of a dead rodent once a month for three months. That got my corn snake back to the expected once a month shed schedule.

I am not a vet, just a long term herper. A vitamin supplement may not help, but I have used it on at least a couple of dozen snakes without observing any ill effects.

Good luck.

[Carlie]

I have to agree, I've been seeing this with increasing regularity, and it's not injury, mites or any of the usual suspects. It results in a very poorly snake the longer it goes on.

I myself have only seen it in colubrids; a corn, a house snake and a Vietnamese blue beauty. The latter 2 didn't make it. The corn recovered, but I can't say why. I'm not sure if I gave him vitamin E. It was a long time ago.

A theory of deficiency does sound likely, though I've also heard about underactive thyroid diagnosis.

It's an area of interest, so I'll keep an ear to the ground. I still have 18 boids here and haven't seen the problem with them, so hopefully it's a coincidence that I've seen a few examples and it isn't anything I've done/not done.

I wonder if food source might have a connection? Mass farmed rodents and all that...

[emoryi]

I have had a similar experience with a female Santa Cruz Gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer pumilis) which I bred a couple of years ago.

The year before she had double clutched, and the following year I didn't want her to do this as I wanted her to recover from just one clutch. So after the initial mating I didn't reintroduce the male. After laying her eggs, she then went off her food and ultimately laid six infertile eggs. This did seem to knock her around a bit, as from then on she was sloughing very often.

It was difficult to get her to eat enough - she had obviously lost a bit of weight from laying six fertile eggs and six slugs. And she would not eat when coming into another slough. I talked with someone who had had a similar experience some years ago, and he recommended adding vitamin supplements to her food. I did this, and it seemed to help as she eventually settled down to normal eating and sloughing. I think her hormones were well out of kilter after two years of double egg production, and she seemed to be in some sort of cycle of sloughing which the supplements seemed to sort out.

I hope this helps. While you snake may not have bred as intensely as this female, I would suggest to adding supplements as it certainly helped me (and the person who suggested it to me). Let me know if you need to know exactly which supplements I used (I'm at work right now, and don't have a computer at home), and I'll find out and let you know.