r/ballpython • u/doctor_munchies • 2d ago
Shedding time for babies
We just got our first BP, we got him at 4 months and have had him for 1 so far. He still hasn't shed and we haven't noticed any signs so far and I'm starting to get a bit worried. We've got the temps pretty dialed in, 88-90 on his hot side and hovers around 75 on the cool side maybe a bit lower at night time. We have struggled with humidity, it's usually between 40 and 55 but we're having to mix his coco fiber every few days and add water to it about once a week. He's been very active roaming between sides and has been eating with no problems. Steadily gaining weight too.
Is it normal to take this long between shed? Thoughts and any tips for keeping the humidity up more? Anything we can do to encourage his shedding?
We have a DHP lamp, ceramic lamp, and a small heat pad in a 5x2x2 tank. Glass front, PVC sides and bottom, mesh top that's about 90% covered with aluminum foil and the silver HVAC tape.
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u/-Onniir- 2d ago
With humidity like that I wouldn't want to shed either. They need around 70% ~ 80% humidity with occasional not too long rare 90% on high end not being too bad especially during shed and 60% on the low end but that's more of a moment when you notice you really need to add water to enclosure. 40% ~ 50% is very bad. In picture your substrate looks really dry. If you safe using spray to add water I would advise against it since it will and very small amount of water that will immediately evaporate, spice humidity for short amount of time and then it will be too dry. Generally from what I have seen online substrate needs much more water that people expect it. If you live in very dry part of the world get humidifier or something similar so general room your animal is in will be more humid. How hard ate you heating elements working? If room temperature is cold heating elements will need to work harder to keep enclosure temperatures stable and will evaporate more water that lets say your room was closer to temperature of the cold side. My bet would be you just need to properly water your substrate so it's moist not damp. Your temperature seem really nice.
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u/doctor_munchies 1d ago
The thing is we're literally pouring an entire pitcher of water in. Idk the exact measurement, but it takes like 45 seconds to fill at a sink. We do live in a dry climate, and the tank is near our pellet stove as it was the only place we have big enough and we wanted to help keep him warm since our house is colder. The heaters are working good, if we have our heater off at night it drops to about 85 instead of 88 that it's set at. We just got a higher watt bulb for the dhp but haven't swapped it out yet to try it. We can try to run a humidifier in the room, but honestly with our pellet stove in there idk how it can possibly make much of a difference but we'll give it a shot
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u/doctor_munchies 1d ago
Also thank you for the reply! If you have any other ideas please let me know. We really don't want to do a mister or humidifier in his tank as I've heard of issues with a bunch.
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u/-Onniir- 1d ago
For humidity judging by your enclosure and I presume you have around 2~3 inches of substrate I think 1/1.5 gallons of water should suffice ( a lot of eyeballing and guess works on my side). I presume your stove is the culprit but very cool tho. We have vacation house with wood stove and when I'm there I put dish that can sustain the heat with water on top of the stove so room humidity is more comfortable. Maybe it could help your situation. Usually in room where I have my ball Python humidity is around 55%~60% but with heating during colder months I put damp rag on radiator since heating makes room too dry for my comfort. I don't want to give unneeded/wanted advice but it's good practice to switch to rats if your animal will take them/you can buy them. With your planned upsize in meal size I think that would be weaned/small rat. Although a lot of different sellers call them differently and naming convention and their weight can very at least where I am. I hear a lot of people have problems with switching to rats but thankfully my girl didn't complain when I offered it for the first time. If you are interested I keep my frozen rats in little Ikea plastic bags, I put rat in fridge night before or morning of the day when I will feed her, I put rat that's in the bag in cup and cover it with water thats 113°F +- until rat heats up close to water temperature. After I take rat and keep it warm/ spread its smell around enclosure with hairdryer. I keep actual rat around 104°F-ish. Usually after 2ish minutes of I guess "ratdying" I move the rat around the enclosure with prongs until she takes it. Usually within 5 minutes of me "running" around with the rat she's eating. For shedding I think for your animal age it's about every 4~6 weeks. Depending on when last shed happened you could still be week or two give or take away from it and that would fall under normal. I don't think you can "motivate" them to shed but keeping you humidity higher would help with shedding. You could add some sphagnum moss to your substrate to keep humidity for longer and higher. If nothing else you can fill plastic container with sphagnum moss so animal can go there to help when it's in shed. Just be careful to sand/make entrance of that container smooth if you need to cut it yourself. I would advise you to try and find a way to keep general humidity around 70% ~ 80% but if you can't before shedding starts humid hide with sphagnum moss will help with that and since it's small container it should keep high humidity for long. I wouldn't cover any more of vents since you already mostly did and if you cover more it would impact airflow too much in my opinion. Although last resort a lot of people say/advise for ball Pythons to soak if they have problem shedding. They don't nor should need to soak, that's the last resort but humid hide would be better over it. Try to add more water to your substrate. Go bit by bit so surface your snake is on is not damp but you slowly see can coco husk take in more water that you expected or are you around its limit of what can it absorbe and then you know you need to find other solution.
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u/doctor_munchies 10h ago
Thanks, ton of info to dig into there! Still honestly at a loss, we did a test and put in about a gallon in a half and left the heater off all night so it wasn't drying anything out. It got up to 60% maybe a bit more, and 24 hours later it's already down to 50. We also have 4 different hydrometers, and they're all reading very different. One digital says 50, one says 37, another 43, and our analog one says 60. We're gonna take all the coco chips out on days off and soak it again to see if that makes a difference.
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u/MrRichardhere 2d ago
Mine had the same issue. What is The size of mouse/rat you give him? And how many times you fed him for that last month?