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I was asking this guy at the place where I get the mice for my b/p, about shedding, and he said that next time I notice the snake start to shed that I should rub olive oil in my hands and let the snake slither thru my hands and get the olive oil on the snake. Has anyone ever heard of this, and does it seem to work well? Will olive oil hurt the snake?
Thanks

While I don't think olive oil would be harmful for your snake, I don't think it's your best option. Personally I've never heard of using oils to help shedding. Usually I hear people mention it to get rid of mites because they basically suffocate from oil. To help with shedding you want to raise the humidity in your ball tank with either spraying and/or adding an extra water bowl in his/her tank. If your ball has a tank with an open top, you may want to take a plastic bag and have it cover 3/4 of this open top. Also remember that a deep water bowl won't help the humidity but the more water surface that touches the air will raise humidity so a shallow and wide waterbowl will be most helpful. Good luck, Scott.
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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

"In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws.
But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
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Point one: I've never personally done it, but I have not heard of a light coating of olive oil hurting a ball python.

Point two: More importantly, why is there all this myth, magic, and voodoo surrounding shedding? Oil, cue tips, pillowcases, towels, socks, this moss, that moss, mulch, rocks, etc...
Ya know what works and has always worked for myself and quite a few other people I've talked with? Water! That's right, soak your animal in: water!
Don't be a wimp about it either. Let it soak for an hour, or more. Don't put it in so much water it has to swim to breathe (obviously!) but enough to cover it. I have never lost a ball python to exhaustion or drowning, I have also never seen scale rot or respiratory infections occur as a result of a good soak.
One other thing is to always provide a good size water dish in their enclosure. If they can't stuff themselves into their normal dish, when you notice them going into a shed put in an even larger water dish in so then can soak themselves if they choose. I live in a very dry climate and my animals just don't experience that many bad sheds. I was visiting a friend that keeps many more ball pythons than I do. Even though he keeps his on slightly damp cypress mulch (I use newspaper) I noticed a lot of his animals having incomplete sheds. This might be attributable to the sheer numbers difference but I also observed that some of the animals had relatively small water dishes. So possibly that is a factor.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Can you tell me what is the best way to make them soak for an hour? I have tried putting the snake in the sink, and he just crawls out of the water. If I get a rubbermaid container, and put the lid on it, do I need to put holes in the lid so he can breath? Do I need to do this everyday until he sheds or just once? Sorry for all of the questions, but we are new to snakes, and his first shed was complete, but in pieces.
Thanks for everyones help.

If you are worried about a bad shed coming up you can soak them for about an hour a day until they shed. This has always worked for me.

If one of my snakes has an incomplete shed, I soak them for around 4 hours and the skin always comes off in the water. I use a clear plastic lidded container. It has just one small hole in it. I fill the water up so that it just covers the snakes back but they can still rest their head on their back to keep it out of the water without swimming.

This is what I do for my adults, if your snake is a hatchling I would have it spend less time in the water and monitor it more closely.

Laura

I have one of those "Critter Keepers" - you know the ones. All plastic with a snap-on neon green or pink lid. I put it in the bathtub, and put an inch or so of barely-warm water in it.

BARELY WARM - you don't want to cook your snake. Also, it should only be deep enough so that he can get all the way under, but if he coils up, he can rest and not drown.

I then fill the bathtub to the same level with slightly warmer water, put the snake in the container, and leave him while I go check my email and clean out my spam.

An hour or so later, the snake is nicely hydrated. I usually start this right when the skin begins to turn dark, and keep it up every day until the eyes go back from blue to clear. The next day, a nice one-piece shed.

If a patch of scales is stubborn, I get a Q-tip wet and soak the area gently with it. GENTLE application of water is all it takes - even for stuck eye caps. Patience is a virtue - just keep the soaking-wet Q-tip on the area and it'll eventually slough off nice and easy. I don't even need to rub.

I would NOT use oil of any kind - plain water is the best. I have not had a problem with getting the head wet - the humidity seems to do the trick most of the time.

Fortunately, we're dealing with Ball Pythons and not Cobras - I don't even want to THINK about the ramifications of bad sheds in hot species.......

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2.0 Ball Pythons
2.0 Bettas
1.1 Pekingeses
1.4 Rats (for breeding)
1.0 Mouse (for scenting rat pinkies)

to soaking the snake in water. What if part of the retained shed is on its head? I don't think I've ever seen a Ball Python willing to soak his head to get it off.

Don't get me wrong, I used to do just this and tried many other methods. But I found that the "sweat box" works better than anything else I have tried and it works 100% of the time to get ALL the skin off.
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Jay A. Martin

Good point. They do like to keep their head up.
I've got a viper boa in my office and I swear that thing has gills.. but anyway...
Just tie a small rock to a string, and the tie the string around their neck, and ... kidding!
Seriously I haven't found it to be too much of an issue. In my experience any problems with retained shed on the head, including retained eyecaps, has been taken care of by the a normal soak. If I ever run into a really stubborn case I will try the wet cloth technique.

That's why I like my "sweat box". No muss, no fuss, no extra work and it NEVER fails.

LOL, the rock. That's a good one.
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Jay A. Martin

that food oils are not as good as nonfood oils
also
they make a oil sprayer you can get at a kitchen store, I use it to season my salad bowls, and if you put the sanimal on a towel, and spray above them, the oil drops down on them (animals) in a light mist
and their normal movements helps put the oils into a even layer
a little like sunscreen or perfume on a human
this is JMHO, if you disagree, please tell me, but do not flame me
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Elizabeth (ecb)

Make this world a better and more beautiful place that You have been in it
*Edward W Bok*

Just my opinion, but I would thing that afterward when the snake tried to soak in its dish that the oil on them would make them unable to soak up any water.

I use mineral oil when the shed is bad on their head, since I can't get them to soak their heads. Also good for retained eyecaps.

For my leopard geckos when they have a bad shed (especially their toes... anything not near theor eyes) I use peroxide and it takes it right off. The bubbly action helps seperate the offending skin from the toes. I don't know if it is safe for balls though. Hmmm, should ask my vet.
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All my Children: 0.2 female humans (1 is 10 and the other is a 6 month old hatchling), 1 Saint Bernard, 2 maine coons, 15 leopard geckos, 1 pacman frog, 1 oscar, 1 jack dempsey, 1.1 ball pythons, and "Lilith" the black meowing kitty