How Do I Tell Her Age???

[6y0ballpython]

I was just wondering if it's possible to tell how old a snake is by it's looks? Our newly acquired ball girl definitely has some years behind her due to her robust size (2400g) , length (54 inches) and girth (8 inches). The store I bought her from said that the vet thought her to be about 8 years old. How would he have guessed this? Based on what? He didn't have any information from her previous owners because she was abandoned and brought into Petland by some people who found her in her abandonded cage. Her scales are in pretty good shape.....some of them are bent and stick out a bit (I've found about 10 on her whole body that do not lay flat nicely). She also has a VERY faint scar about 2 inches long just above her spurs. I also noticed that when I bought her, she had a build up of skin around her almost stubby/flat spurs from many years of shedding. I've since cleaned all of this up nicely with a pair of tweezers and water. Her spurs are a bit longer now since removing all of the layers of dead skin around them. It must have taken a few years of shedding to build this up as well. Also, one of her eyes looks like it has a retained eyecap.....but it's not......It's nice and clear, it just has a spidery/veiny look over it. Kind of like dried out desert ground. Her eyes are nice and clear and moist looking, but the left one has this look to it. I am going to try and get a picture of it to show you so maybe you can help me to figure out if it is an old retained eye cap, or just age. She is not dehydrated because the eye is not dented, just cracked looking, and she sees well enough because her reflexes are good when I put a hand near her head and she strikes her food acurately (how much of it is heat sensation I am not sure though). Hopefully these photolinks will help with my questions.

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mat_nurse/detail?.dir=/657fscd&.dnm=d99dscd.jpg&.src=ph

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mat_nurse/detail?.dir=/657fscd&.dnm=6338scd.jpg&.src=ph (sorry it's so small)

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mat_nurse/detail?.dir=/657fscd&.dnm=db95scd.jpg&.src=ph (do you think she's too fat?)

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mat_nurse/detail?.dir=/657fscd&.dnm=6091scd.jpg&.src=ph (her mouth is in nice shape too....)

[harrellharrell]

A vet can make an educated approximate guess, I am not quite sure what factors go in to that, because husbandry can affect the size of the snake, along with feeding, and stress. I am wondering if this snake was maybe W/C because of the scar, retained shed, and the bent scales. You should probably have her checked for parasites, if she hasn't been already. You might also want to make sure that she has a little time to de-stress after the tweezer treatment. My brother in law abandoned a snake to us and we had to do the same, Rajah had 15 retained eye caps on one eye, and 17 on the other and countless around the spurs and cloaca and tail. She ended up losing both eyes. She is doing fine as a blind snake and the people she is with take good care of her. Off topic though! My point there was that balls do a lot of their sensing by heat, and in fact cannot see too well to begin with. Someone jump in and correct me if I'm wrong on that. I'd examine that eye again and maybe have it checked by a vet, it does look wrinkled like there is a cap there. The clearness of it, might not be an indicative factor here. It could also be a scar though.
Looks like my .02 turned into at least a dollar! LOL

Melissa

[Clay Davenport]

Once a female reaches that size any guess at her age is just that, a guess and nothing more. There's no indicators as to age in a fully grown specimen. Your snake could be 8 or she could be 18, she would look the same.
I have one female that is at least 20 years old, but she could be twice that for all I know. I got her 16 years ago as a four foot adult. I could place her beside a 6 year old I have and no one not familiar with the two would be able to pick out the older one.

[Bill & Amy]

Poorly taken care of cbb specimens can have scars, bent scales, poor sheds etc. So it is not necessarily a wild caught, but a check for parasites would still be a good precaution. The eye looks like it has a retained eyecap to me. Otherwise she looks like a nice plump snake. ;)

[6y0ballpython]

Thank you!!! She is a nice plump, hearty eating, happy snake as far as behavior goes. I believe it is a very old retained eyecap myself. She was checked for parasites before I bought her according to the Petland I bought her from. I haven't noticed any sign of external parasites, but internal I could not tell you as she hasn't pooped for me yet. She pooped the day I bought her (sept. 22). She has peed alot though! She also has eaten about 12 mice since I bought her.....how much more can she fit in there? She's quite a large snake for a ball, and I don't want to over feed her. I feed her 3 adult mice every friday. She eats these with fury! I have given her as many as five because my other ball refused to eat during his last shed and I had two left over live mice that I had to find something to do with......so I gave them to her and she ate them! That was about 3 feeds ago. I think I will take her a vet and have that eye checked out.....we have a good snake vet here in town. I've tried to push at it a bit to see if it looks like an extra layer, but she won't tolerate much probing. She is very strong and I don't want to piss her off and make her head shy. I tried to probe it a bit with some blunt tweezer and I was able to get a hold of it and it pulled away a bit from the eyeball itself, but not from around the rim of the eyeball. If I pull any harder I'm going to rip her eye out of the socket! How do I know how deep to go? I guess I don't, only a vet with experience would. I know now for sure that she has layers of retained eye caps because the other eye has cracks in it too now that I look closer. She is going into a molt right now....her belly is pinking and her good eye is bluish a bit. I know for sure that she cannot see as well as she should be. She uses a lot of her sense of smell and heat to move around. I will make her an appointment this morning.........or should I wait until she is done this molt to see what all comes off with it? It would be indicative of how attached they are wouldn't it? Do snakes develop cataracts as they age?

[6y0ballpython]

Also, if someone has some pictures of what retained eyecaps look like, and some advice on how to treat them (how deep to go, etc, what it should look like). I guess I can look at my 6 year old ball boy to see what it should look like because he doesnt have any retained caps at all. I guess if her spurs were caked like they were, then her eyecaps probably have to same amount of layers as well. I believe she is a wild caught because of her scar. She also does a lot of "nosing" when she moves. she's constantly nuzzling her nose into my neck when she's sitting with me, and her tongue is constantly out.

[Mark Schmidtke]

Don't try to pull off any eye caps yourself unless you have a LOT of experience with such things. Let her shed on her own, keep her well hydrated and when she does shed, check the shed for eye caps. If the eye caps on the shed skin are intact then you're fine. If not they let a vet take care of it. It's too easy to actually grab the brill thats supposed to be there an damage it. This could cause blindness.

[darkbloodwyvern]

yes, the best thing i have used for unshed caps is mineral oil gently dabbed on unshed skin pieces. It seems to work pretty well on eyecaps as well as random chunks of skin. A decent humidity range may let her shed it herself, if she has problems,afterwards, you can always use one of many shedding help techniques.

[LadyOhh]

Another thing you can do if you are SURE that there is an unshed eye cap is take some scotchtape stickyside out, and roll it around your finger, and roll from one end of the eye to the other to see if you can catch the cap and pull it off. Don't do it too much if you can't catch it with the tape, and just mist and humidify until the shed comes off... Better than tweezers (safer), and easier to not damage the snake.

Good luck!