Ball python losing colour

[Jimbo]

I have a female pastel ball python that has started to lose her colour. I have noticed that after her last shed she has started to develop white patches along her body, losing her colour. Is this normal? And have any of you experienced this before? Her cage temps are good 28 on the cold side and 32 on the hot spot, the humidity is kept up near the 70% region with her last shed being one perfect shed. If anyone could advise as to how this happens and what causes it that would be great.

[J.C]

Howzit Jimbo.

Can't help u on the white patch,but the temps are a bit high if you ask me.
Just my opinion! (=

Regards,JC

[monopeltis]

calico?

[gareth.hooper]

Please add current size and age.
Do have any info on the sire and dame?

[gareth.hooper]

Done some interweb searching and it seems this is not all that unique.
No forum or post has a definitive answer or resolution.

Some keep the spots and some seem to shed it out.

[chris w]

Could it be a burn of some kind?

[Jimbo]

@ J.C and chris w: I initially thought that it was too hot but I have spoken to guys who breed and to a vet who deals with snake and they suggested we keep the temps up in these ranges. Also articles and research I have done say these temps are acceptable for ball pythons. We keep our snakes in a room with underfloor heating and the room temp was kept at roughly 28degrees (there is a thermostat so it might drop briefly but not by much). Each cage then has a heatmat that covers roughly a third of the cage and that is set to cut out at 32degrees and back on at 30degrees. A pretty controlled environment with regards to temperature and humidity with no changes occuring in her cage between her last shed and this lastest one. There is also very little that could burn her and if she was to get burnt I don't think it would be on both sides of her body and definately not little patches like that, it would more likely be her belly that gets burnt.

@ monopeltis & gareth.hooper: She was bought from Con as a Lemon Pastel, not entirely sure who the sire and dame where but if you check his website, none of the pairings that he made last year are with calico so I don't think it is that. She is about 10 months old and weighs over 400g, last time I weighed her was about 3 weeks ago and she was at 420g but has since been fed. I also did some searches on the internet and the closest thing that I could find was a female spider that lost her colour after a shed, not sure if she got it back, but that was the colour of the entire snake. I guess this could be happening here but then my question would be what causes it? The humidity is 70% in her cage so she wasn't kept in dry conditions as suggested with the Spider example.

[chris w]

I didn't think that the heating would have burnt the snake those temps are ideal, my concern was maybe she had burnt herself on a light fixture perhaps.

[Jimbo]

A burn would have been my first thought too if I didn't know the setup of the cages. That's why I just wanted to explain the setup of their cages so we could rule burns out. If there was a light in her cage I would understand if there was a single white patch (or grouping) on her body but it goes the length of her body on both sides and only in the yellow sections of her body, if it was a burn I would assume that it would be indescriminate and cause white patching over the entire area.

[Bushviper]

It sounds like one of those anomalies that just happen. The caging sounds perfect. We get this with certain boas as well.

[LAMB Pythons]

For the life of.... I cant seem to find the post on a UK forum where someone explained why and how this happens, its more common than you think. It one of those posts where I found it by following a link to another forum then to another and so on.