# How long is too long for an adult python shed cycle?



## MattPat (Nov 4, 2019)

So my adult female diamond (that I only acquired about 5 weeks ago) has been in a very long shed cycle, is this normal:

- noticed milky belly scales about 4 weeks ago (no sign of scale rot etc)
- eyes turned milky about a week and a half ago
- is now very dull in colour 
- is a bit more defensive than normal
- but still hasnt shed


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## Abstractivity (Nov 5, 2019)

could be its shed inside its hide or somewhere you can't see. either that or it just hasn't shed yet. so maybe give the enclosure a spray or move the water bowl closer to the heat source.


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## Sdaji (Nov 5, 2019)

She's probably just about to slough, the timeframe is about right. Whatever you saw 4 weeks ago wasn't sloughing related. Leave her alone between when you first see her eyes going cloudy or other signs of the start of a slough and when she sloughs.


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## MattPat (Nov 5, 2019)

I gave her a spray last night and woke up and she had shed...almost perfect... only one scale on the very tip of her tail was still there but it was easily removed.

Thanks for your help though


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## Sdaji (Nov 5, 2019)

MattPat said:


> I gave her a spray last night and woke up and she had shed...almost perfect... only one scale on the very tip of her tail was still there but it was easily removed.
> 
> Thanks for your help though



There you go, right on schedule as I said  It's always satisfying to get a nice 1 piece slough!


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## MattPat (Nov 5, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> There you go, right on schedule as I said  It's always satisfying to get a nice 1 piece slough!



You got it!

Is it possible to tell the snake's gender just from the slough?


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## Sdaji (Nov 6, 2019)

MattPat said:


> You got it!
> 
> Is it possible to tell the snake's gender just from the slough?



Firstly and most importantly, I like that you're using 'gender' in the politically incorrect way. Bonus points if you manage to trigger someone 

It's sometimes possible, but usually not too reliable. Males can often have sloughs which look like females, this is completely normal, and I've had females slough and look fairly similar to males. If you get whopping great sperm plugs you can be fairly sure it's a male but in general checking sloughs isn't a particularly reliable way to sex them. Other than a talented individual probing it (many who claim to be good manage to barely get more than 50% correct), behavioural sexing is the best way. Snakes haven't been told the bullshit that gender is a social construct, so if you have two pythons go into ritual combat acting like males they are males (this rarely if ever works on Diamonds as down south it's too energetically expensive to fight so they just have laid back gang bangs). If they have sex though you can be sure the one acting like a male os male and 99.9% sure the female is female (otherwise you have one clever male allowing his stupid competition too wear himself out, allowing the clever one to have more energy and goo left over to use on the real female. This is not at all a common strategy in pythons (maybe they have sufficient self respect) so you can be sure they're the sexes they're acting like, more sure than methods like probing, popping and slough examination.


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## MattPat (Nov 6, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> Firstly and most importantly, I like that you're using 'gender' in the politically incorrect way. Bonus points if you manage to trigger someone
> 
> It's sometimes possible, but usually not too reliable. Males can often have sloughs which look like females, this is completely normal, and I've had females slough and look fairly similar to males. If you get whopping great sperm plugs you can be fairly sure it's a male but in general checking sloughs isn't a particularly reliable way to sex them. Other than a talented individual probing it (many who claim to be good manage to barely get more than 50% correct), behavioural sexing is the best way. Snakes haven't been told the bullshit that gender is a social construct, so if you have two pythons go into ritual combat acting like males they are males (this rarely if ever works on Diamonds as down south it's too energetically expensive to fight so they just have laid back gang bangs). If they have sex though you can be sure the one acting like a male os male and 99.9% sure the female is female (otherwise you have one clever male allowing his stupid competition too wear himself out, allowing the clever one to have more energy and goo left over to use on the real female. This is not at all a common strategy in pythons (maybe they have sufficient self respect) so you can be sure they're the sexes they're acting like, more sure than methods like probing, popping and slough examination.



This made my day.

Triggering someone by talking about pythons' gender only being male or female would be hilarious.


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## Herpetology (Nov 6, 2019)

MattPat said:


> This made my day.
> 
> Triggering someone by talking about pythons' gender only being male or female would be hilarious.


Plenty of nutjobs out there, I’m sure someone would be offended if you told them their “xhe” pronoun snake was a male/female, they’d flip you over and shout murder


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## Dustproof (Nov 14, 2019)

One way to get an idea is that Male Snakes are generally smaller than Females, Snakes like Stimson Pythons have a different shaped tail. The best thing is to take the snake to a Vet and ask them to sex it, they use a probe and see how far it goes into the Cloaca to tell what sex the animal is.


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