Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have two ball pythons that recently sloughed and their remaining skin has a slimy/sticky texture. I saw this before a couple of years ago, but don't remember what its owner did. Any advice would be helpful.

Snakes naturally create a "liquid" when shedding. What is does is ease the shedding process by helping the shed seperate from the body. As for the stickiness (I dont know this for a fact so don't quote me on it), when a snake sheds in the wild they rub against rocks, trees, and such to help remove the skin and the stickiness of the "liquid" is so the skin will stick to whatever the snake rubs against.

Hope this helps.

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Christine
Tails With Scales Reptiles
Happiness is biting my snake back!

Thanks for the help, but that definitely isn't the problem. The skin is red, tender and sticky, she has also lost some weight. I think it is fungal or bacterial, I'll try to get pictures.

Sounds like its time to find a vet.

The only time I have seen something like you're describing happened when a snake's skin was manually removed before it naturally would have occurred.

In one instance, I was moving a heavy Burmese python when it was at least a week away from shedding and a large patch of the shed detached. A weepy area resulted, but it healed up well with the next shed.

In another instance, I restrained a small albino corn snake for probing without realizing it was opaque and some of the shed came off. Unfortunately, the person I was giving it to called to report the next day that the snake was dead. I'll never be sure, but I suspect he must have removed the entire shed prematurely.

You say this has happened to two snakes at the same time? Is it possible something like the circumstances I described above happened?

-Joan

>>We have two ball pythons that recently sloughed and their remaining skin has a slimy/sticky texture. I saw this before a couple of years ago, but don't remember what its owner did. Any advice would be helpful.