How long does shedding take?

["Red-eye"_Matt]

We recently noticed our ball python starting to get ready to shed. His/her eyes started to cloud over and the colors became much duller. So we decided that we would wait until he/she has shed before we decided to feed again. The only thing is that we noticed this about 6 days ago, and as of 4 days ago he/she has not come out of his/her humid hide.

We were wondering if this is a common thing as it is our first snake and we had no idea as to how long it should take it to shed. We aren't really concerned with the eating as he/she ate for us on Wednesday the 11th. How much longer should we wait before becoming concerned?

Any input you can give us would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

[tHeGiNo]

No need at all to be concerned. In a few days it will look like she has shed, because she isn't cloudy and her colours aren't as faded. You won't be able to find the shed, because she hasn't shed yet :D At this point give it another day and she should be odne.

[Big Mike]

Perfectly normal. Sometimes it takes a few days or less sometimes it takes more than a week. Now would be a good time to raise the humidity or put in a humif hide.

["Red-eye"_Matt]

We have been keeping the humidity up more than normal and I forgot to mention that it was a humid hide that he/she stays in.

Thanks for the replies guys . . . we will let you know when the deed has been done!

Matt

["Red-eye"_Matt]

Well . . . update time.

When we checked the tank tonight when we got off of work we noticed that Xain's colors had seemed to have returned to normal so we opened up the hide he/she was in (it is an empty butter container with holes cut in the lid) we found the shed! We were quite happy to see that it had come off in one piece. And just a little while ago our little one took a hopper mouse extremely quickly.

Unfortunately as of right now we are trying to get him/her to gain a little weight before we start the transition to pre-killed. We have seen the damage that can occur and would hate to see something like that happen to our little baby. Right now Xain has an incredible feeding response; the hopper that we dropped in had no sooner had it's feet hit the floor before it Xain had a grabbed ahold of it's head and wrapped around it. I don't know if he/she is affraid that the mouse will get away so it doesn't seem to get the chance to even try too.

Here is a pic taken near the end of the meal (sorry for the lousy quality but it was taken in a hurry)

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/1280xaineat1.jpg

Matt