Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My BRB male that I posted about a week or so ago finished his shed. I rotated him in and out of a soak bin for the past week. His shed came off fine. I was not able to split it into two layers, but it was one of the thickest sheds I have ever seen come off a snake. Here is the odd part. Now, he has two thick strips running the length of his back where the scales have lost about half their size. Here is a picture of him, and a picture of him next to his sister who is just fine, for comparison.

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Ball Pythons:
1.2 Normal
1.2 Pastel
0.1 Black Pastel
2.0 Het Orange Ghost
0.1 Orange Ghost
1.1 Mojave
1.2 Spider
1.1 Albino
0.1 Het Albino
1.0 Piebald
0.1 Double het, Albino Pied
Other:
0.1 Irian Jaya x Jungle Carpet python
1.0 Jungle Carpet Python
1.0 Tiger Retic
1.1 Burmese Pythons
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boas
3.3 Corn Snakes
0.0.1 American Alligator
1.0 Savannah Monitor
0.0.1 Argus Monitor
1.0 Chinese Water Dragon
0.1 Brown Basilisk
1.2 Crested Gecko
0.1 Sulcata Tortoise
1.1 Sugar Gliders
1.1 Puppies

I have seen that before. It looks like the shed took the surface off to about half the thickness of each scale. It may be caused by a fungal infection of some sort. What substrate are you using? I would keep the snake on plain paper and keep it extra clean. With that softer skin exposed like that there is increased chance of infections. It looks like the shed got all the problem out of the way for now and it can improve from where it is now if no other problems develop. Even if it does not have any other skin problems it will take a year or two of shed cycles before it will have healthy looking scales like the other snake in the PIC. One of my male Peruvians arrived looking like it had just had a shed like yours. The scales looked too small and shriveled around the edges with lots of white skin between the scales. He still does not look perfect 18 months later but he eats and sheds well and has grown and is now courting some females.

Interesting. Fungus had come to mind. And he is on cypress mulch, so it could happen. I will definitely stick him on paper towels until he has had a few good sheds and seems to be recovering.
Thanks for the advice. I just realized that the three strangest things I have seen happen to snakes have all be to BRBs.

I know someone who did not heed my warning about keeping different species of snakes together, and put a BRB with a BCI. His red-tail bit his Brazilian. The wounds went necrotic and after a really long battle with that, he died.

Another odd one was at my work. We had recently purchased several breeding groups of BRBs right before I had to go out of town. While I was gone, one of the males spilled his water, defecated, and mixed it all together. Then he got himself stuck in a certain spot for a couple days, and when I found him his face was severely swollen, and had clear mucus all over in it. My first reaction was "woah! worst resp ever" I picked him up, and the 3" portion of his neck that had been stuck had rotted out. He was still alive, as the he could not move, he was not losing blood or anything. It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. Particularly because he was trying to bite me a ton, but could not move his head much at all.

Then this scale thing with my little guy. Not the strangest, but still kinda odd.
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Ball Pythons:
1.2 Normal
1.2 Pastel
0.1 Black Pastel
2.0 Het Orange Ghost
0.1 Orange Ghost
1.1 Mojave
1.2 Spider
1.1 Albino
0.1 Het Albino
1.0 Piebald
0.1 Double het, Albino Pied
Other:
0.1 Irian Jaya x Jungle Carpet python
1.0 Jungle Carpet Python
1.0 Tiger Retic
1.1 Burmese Pythons
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boas
3.3 Corn Snakes
0.0.1 American Alligator
1.0 Savannah Monitor
0.0.1 Argus Monitor
1.0 Chinese Water Dragon
0.1 Brown Basilisk
1.2 Crested Gecko
0.1 Sulcata Tortoise
1.1 Sugar Gliders
1.1 Puppies

Weird! It'll be interesting to see what a few sheds do.

Is that a ridge along his back? It looks like a skin fold in the pix.
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Julie
www.[url ban]/gfx

Good catch Julie - "Is that a ridge along his back? It looks like a skin fold in the pix."

That's exactly what it looks like and it even looks skinny. I went back to the original post and is a good feeder?? Something is not quite right.

What size of feeder and what frequency? Any regurges?

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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

At first I thought it was a really skinny snake, but then I looked closer and the body mass seems ok, but there's that "backbone" looking spot. It looks like the stuck shed may have been a little tight in that area and created a skin fold that fused on into a ridge. If that's what it is, it'll be interesting to see if he grows out of it. I bet he will.
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Julie
www.[url ban]/gfx

Actually that is just a line of scales that was not affected by whatever caused the other scales to "shrink". Not skinny, no spinal ridging, no skin folds. If you look at the picture of him next to his sister, you can see that the scales in the very center are normal. I was really confused when I saw the picture also. I had the same reaction, but had just given him a very thorough examination, and he is very plump and healthy.

He eats small fuzzy rats twice per week.
Never regurged. Never refused food.

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Ball Pythons:
1.2 Normal
1.2 Pastel
0.1 Black Pastel
2.0 Het Orange Ghost
0.1 Orange Ghost
1.1 Mojave
1.2 Spider
1.1 Albino
0.1 Het Albino
1.0 Piebald
0.1 Double het, Albino Pied
Other:
0.1 Irian Jaya x Jungle Carpet python
1.0 Jungle Carpet Python
1.0 Tiger Retic
1.1 Burmese Pythons
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boas
3.3 Corn Snakes
0.0.1 American Alligator
1.0 Savannah Monitor
0.0.1 Argus Monitor
1.0 Chinese Water Dragon
0.1 Brown Basilisk
1.2 Crested Gecko
0.1 Sulcata Tortoise
1.1 Sugar Gliders
1.1 Puppies

Yea, I could see that second pic showed him in good body weight so I thought maybe a skin fold. Keep us updated as he progresses.
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Julie
www.[url ban]/gfx

Yeah that is definitely good to hear since my first response when seeing that apparent heavy spinal ridging was to check for crypto. Glad it was a optical illusion instead.

Sean.
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1.1 BRB
0.1 Pacific Gophersnake(unproven Hypo)
1.0 Amel Pacific Gophersnake
0.1 Striped Anery Pacific Gophersnake
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
0.1 Silver TPRS
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat