Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok, details about myset up to begin with. so recently, in the last month, i started to use this substrate called eco earth, it is like crushed up coconut shells, i switched from using the cage carpet, but am going to go back to it tomorrow to maybe remidy this problem it the substrate is to blame. she has a belly heat of about 90-93 and a gradient of 92-81. her humidity has flucuated from about 40-60% and to fix it all, i have put a humid hide in for her to use if she needs it, but still occasionally mist. the cage is a 38 gallon reptarium lined in vinyl on all walls to keep in humidity, she has a big water bowl and three hides dispersed in the cage.

ok, now my question, on the very last 1/5 of my snakes belly, her long scales look "dried out" as it were and sort of wrinkly looking. they are not miscolored, but not shiney like the rest, and go on for about 20 scales. i am wondering what this is and if there is something to do about it. is this the beggining of what a shed looks like, i have only had her for about 3 months, and she started her shed when i was away for a long weekend the first time. is this a burn, infection, scale rot??? if i had a camera i would take a pic, but i dont' have one right now.

any help will be greatly apreciated!!
thanks in advance
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~dana~

1.1 ball pythons (hailex and roxy)
1.0 cat (whiskers)
1.1 russian hamsters (peanut and tj)

Might be the on-set of "scale rot" from the belly being on damp substrate too much. My only experience with this infection was a BP I received that was already infected. Many of the belly scales adjacent to and including the red ones had the wrinkled appearance that you describe. I use newspaper substrate and applied neosporin every couple of days for a few weeks, then the snake shed and showed marked improvement. I discontinued the neosporin and kept the snake on dry newspaper. The wrinkled scales smoothed out with the next shed. Because of our climate, I keep all 18 of my BP's at less than 40% humidity. I check them all every couple of days and only mist their enclosures for the few days between when their eyes clear and they shed. No respiratory problems, no shedding problems, and the only thing I use resembling a "humid hide" is the egg-laying boxes for gravid females. Probably lots of other opinions out there, and hopefully you'll get a few more, but under my circumstances, it works. Good luck.
Paul

I use eco-earth for my gopher. I really like it. But I'm not sure how good it is for a ball, or any other snake that needs a higher humidity. On the good side...it retains moisture very well. But...on the bad side...it retains moisture very well. LOL If you're misting on a regular basis, the substrate may be staying continually moist. While they like a somewhat humid environment, they don't like their beds to be wet.

I'd recommend switching to newspaper until you're sure the scales are fully healthy once again. Then take a look at the different substrates people here use. (Wish I could recommend some from experience!)

Judy
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1.0 red cape gopher (Caesar)

well i changed out the eco earth stuff and put back in cage carpet today. when i took her out to change the cage and put her into her holding cage and when i took her out of that one i noticed little pieces of scales on the groud, like shedded scales, but just individual. i have been putting neosporin on her belly once a day too. i also noticed that one of the long scales has turned a tan color and is sort of peeling back. just for info sake that last time she shed was christmas day.

the one thing about the eco earth stuff was that it was never really wet, i would mist it and then it would dry out in about half an hour and i never would spray under her hides. and i only mist once a day. but i'm happily moving back to the cage carpet cause it's easy to clean

oh one more thing, is there anything else i should be doing to take care of her scales, other than what i'm doing, if it is scale rot or something else????

thanks everyone for the help and advice
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~dana~

1.1 ball pythons (hailex and roxy)
1.0 cat (whiskers)
1.1 russian hamsters (peanut and tj)

If you want to get away from the carpet, try CareFresh. I've been using it for the entire eight years I've had my guy and no problems related to it. Its color is light enough that you can easily tell if it's wet and it doesn't have a lot of small particles either.

I'm treating my guy for some problems right now, that I'm going to post about in a few minutes, and I'm putting Silvidene on him twice a day. He's also got the individual scales falling off. If it doesn't clear up in a few days, take her to a Vet.