Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Our gray banded king shed today and we got to watch!! We were so thrilled!!! I'm confused though.... his eyes never got cloudy, his skin never really got dull, and he ate a decent sized pinky last night.... none of this goes along with what I know as the "norm". However, nothing about my king is normal anyway! He always bites himself a couple of times before he gets a good hold of the pinky, he eats the butt first, he inhales his food and he will roll upside down briefly as he is moving around his tank!!

Anyway, is his recent eating/shedding pattern (as stated before) normal?

Thanks!
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Becki, loved by:

1 pet hubby
1 fur-angel, Great Dane, Lucky
1 lab/great pyr. mix, Bandit
1 grey banded king, Nitro (aka The Pig!)
1 snow corn, Nessy

My snake sounds alot like yours!!

He scarfs as many pinkies and fuzzies as we'll put in front of him, he's grown over 4 inches in the past three weeks, climbs like a monkey (he likes to pull his thermometers down and drag them around his cage) and we even caught him hanging from the ceiling a few times having a nap.

He doesn't stress about being handled and tortures the cats.... he seems to like having them bat at the walls where he's staring at them.

I guess we're blessed with strange graybands
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Both snakes sound completely bizarre! Nothing about them follows any of the norms. Mice are almost always consumed head first, the normal consumption rate of a snake that size should be one and -sometimes- two normal sized furries a week. My Gray-Banded Thayeri King gets cloudy before shedding and refuses to eat or be handled before shedding. So does any other GBK I've ever seen before.

As far a shedding goes, about a week before shedding the snake should be relatively cloudy, with the most obvious difference being in the eyes which should cloud over significantly. However, about two days before shedding, some snakes will revert to their normal color and their eyes will be their usual onyx black. They should still refuse to eat, however, until after shedding.

As far as the two oddball snakes go, though, I would assume that as long as they still eat regularly (and is sounds like they sure do!), still remain relatively active on a normal schedule, and continue to shed full sheds, they are 100% healthy as can be.

So congrats on having completely unique snakes!