Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First let me introduce myself, my name is Ezme and I own two very beautiful spotted pythons.
I am having a bit of husbandry trouble with them at the moment. One of them is having trouble with his sheds, I have tried raising the humidity, providing a large water dish, providing a moist hide, and finally soaking him. The humidity and large water dish arent helping, and he doesnt voluntarily go into his moist hide (which is the most hidey area in his enclosure. forcing him to saok for hours seems to do the trick, but i dont see why he needs it.
Both my beauties have a rough patch of skin on the same place of their neck.
I have treated them for mights, cleaned the enclosures, and kept the humidity up.
The temps are a range between 75 degrees farenheit with a basking spot of 90 degrees farenheit.
I would dearly like to know what I am doig wrong that causes this trouble.
thank you

If the pythons always have a flakey patchy area of skin around their necks, it may be something other than unshed skin. Patchy skin could be signs of ringworm or other skin ailments. I haven't heard of these in pythons before, typically they get things like scale rot or blister disease, usually from a too moist environment and almost always on the belly.

Mites or ticks don't tend to make the skin flakey though they can cause other health problems if the infestation is high.

Snakes tend to naturally seek moist areas when entering their shed cycle so it's odd to hear yours avoids it completely. The only thing that comes to mind is the moist hide is either too cold or too hot, thus making it unsuitable. If the temps in the hide are fine, it may not feel secure enough for your snake.

Are both your pythons housed separately or together? Multiple animals in the same cage may be stressing eachother out, but I am not sure if spotted pythons are prone to this as much as other snakes.

Probably your best bet is to take one or both animals to a qualified reptile vet in your area to check the patchy skin. They can examine a scrapping for other forms of external parasites and test for ringworm or other possible skin problems. If the patchy skin only appears during the normal shed cycle, it could be your snake was injuried in that area at some point in it's past which always sheds badly. One other thought came to mind, the patchy area could be a burn that is taking awhile to heal. Check to make sure the snake can't get into contact with any hot bulbs or hot spots from the undertank heater (one way to test is place your hand directly over the heating pad where the cage sits on it. If it burns you, it will burn your snake).

They are both housed separately. If I put the male in his moist hide he wont leave it unless I remove him- I'm not sure what his problem is but he really isnt a very bright snake. I've checked the UTH and cant find any warm spots, the only thing I can think of is if they managed to either scrape themselves on the cage around the light or if the cage around the light got hot and they touched it.
If it was ring worm, would it be in a small circluar pattern like on mammals or is it different for reptiles?
I'll go phone my vet, I was just hoping it was something I was doing wrong instead of a medical issue.
Thank you very much for your help.
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Ezme
1.1 Spotted Pythons
0.1 Surinam Red Tailed Boa
1.0 Colombian Boa
1.1 Asian Water Dragons