Needing Advice Please Help

Hi all

I am aware that this is a Corn Snake site but I'm trying to get some advice and I have posted on two other forums and so far no replies.

My Royal Python shed his skin today, thankfully all in one piece. However, on inspection of the shed skin I notice that there is a red mark around the area of the anal scale. Can anyone please tell me if this is normal or should I seek advice from the vet tomorrow morning?

I can't upload the photo as my husband is scanning the hard drive it's on!

Many thanks

This would have been better on the Miscellaneous section, but I would think that any red mark that wasn't there before would be cause for concern. It could possibly be a case of scale rot starting. What sort of humidity are you keeping it at, and what sort of substrate? In the meantime, if you haven't already, remove substrate and place the snake on paper towels to keep the area clean and dry. Avoid excessive humidity until you can get a vet to look at it. Good luck to you!

Thanks Meg I'll let you know how things go with the vet tomorrow morning.

I'll cross my fingers that it's just something mild or nothing at all!

The red mark is on the shed skin, not on the snake itself, right?

I have heard people say that sometimes their snakes' skins have spots of blood in them. This has never happened to me, but it could be that. It is probably still worth seeing a vet to be safe, though.

Good luck!

Vet Advice

I called the vet this morning it turns out that this is just a small spec of blood on the shed skin and this is a perfectly normal thing to happen.

You always panic when you see something new for the first time. Apparently this can happen with all snakes and is nothing to worry about. Obviously though that if there is any blood on the snake or it is a vast amount of blood on the shed skin it's wise to contact the vet, however, I now know what to look for and as soon as I can get access to my hard drive with the photo's on it I will post the picture to let you all see what it looked like.

Thanks again for all your help and advice.

I thought when you wrote, that the red spot was on the snake, not the shed. I wouldn't have been worried about it on the shed. For some reason I missed the section where you said you saw it on the shed skin. I see it now though! Sorry about that!

The blood spots next to the vent on shed skins was just brought up by someone asking if they could determine the sex that way. I personally had never seen the blood spots, but several other members have and said it was perfectly normal, but the number of them (1 or 2) cannot be used to determine the sex of the snake. I'm always learning something new every day!