How to measure length

To measure the length I've been just measuring the shed. (we've had nice whole sheds). Is this accurate? Is there a better way?

Thanks

Serpwidgets has a great program that he wrote to measure snakes.

http://serpwidgets.com/Apps/apps.html

Originally Posted by Maize

To measure the length I've been just measuring the shed. (we've had nice whole sheds). Is this accurate? Is there a better way?

Thanks

Sheds are not at all accurate. Snakes stretch their sheds while they're shedding, so that's not a good way of measuring.

As stated, Serp has a great program.

I've always heard that if you want to use sheds to measure, subtract 10% from the shed length. People that use Serp's program have told me that the 10% method comes out usually within an inch or so...

Yeah, I tried Jeff's (trpnbils) 10% method and it came out within an inch of the actual length determined via Serp's program. The only thing to keep in mind when using Serp's program is you gotta keep the camera almost perfectly level with the surface the snake is on, otherwise the pic is slightly skewed and thus the measurements are too. That program is great though - saves tons of time when trying to measure a wiggly snake!


Edit: My 24 inch snake's last shed was 2 inches longer than she actually was, just to put things in perspective.