Hi,
Agentra's post on the tinfoil treatment has helped a lot of people and I'm glad it helped you too.
I like to use my bare hands when removing shed just so I can judge the pressure and resistance better. Plus I can feel when it has gotten too dry and needs more water.
The reason for starting at the mouth is that you need to start at the edge of the stuck skin and I find it comes off easier in the direction of head to tail ( just because of the shape of the scales I think ).
Keep a sprayer of tepid water handy as you will probably need to moisten things up a few times during the process. She will hate getting sprayed but she isn't going to like any of the process really.
The shed seperates from just inside her lip so you will need to rub it in such a way that you lift up her lip - pretend you are helping her do the Elvis lip curl if it helps.
I start in the corner of the mouth and then slowly work round to the nose releasing it at the edge but not trying to take the whole stuck bit off.
Once you get a section started you can pull on it between finger and thumb gently to move round the edge of the mouth rather than having to keep rubbing her lip - it's a little faster and there is less chance of snagging your thumb on her teeth.
Once you have the front of her nose lifted then you can grasp that and try and remove the stuck shed ( be gentle and slow at the heatpits, nostrils and the eyes ).
If you have it moist enough it should come off pretty easily and in one peice.
I normally don't worry too much about stuck shed unless it encircles the snake (especially at the tail tip ) or stops them eating. My normal male was a horrible shedder for years and would never eat with eyecaps stuck so this is why I started doing this.
He's fine most of the time now with maybe one bad shed a year - personally I think he is just plain lazy and preffers to wait and let me do it for him.
I have got into the habit of checking all snake sheds for the eyecaps now just to make sure everything is ok.
dr del
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