Bad shed, I mean BAD shed

[Fataltix]

Hey guys,
I opened up my viv this morning to the wonderful sight of my juvenile ball python Shrike shedding. His eyes had cleared yesterday, and I gave him a bath in warm water for an hour. His humidity had been around 50-60% and sometimes around 70s directly after a mist for the whole duration. However, after checking on him a few hours later, I noticed that he was shedding into TINY pieces, not one big shed, or at least a few large pieces, but upwards of a hundred flakes, and is still struggling to do so. How bad is this? I've never seen a shed this bad and don't understand what I did wrong, is he going to suffer any repercussions as a result? Also, I believe he got his eye caps off (phew) but I can't be sure because I can't find that particular piece of shed.

Cheers,
Fatal

[blackcrystal22]

Two things:
1. Soaking before a shed (especially in the final stages) removes the oils that the snake uses to shed and can cause a bad shed.
2. He'll be fine. Soak him after a bad shed and just use a damp towel to rub off as much as you can.

[Adam Chandler]

Any pics of this shed?

It's not a good idea to soak BP's before they shed. Soaking is more a corrective action when a shed is bad to get the remaining pieces. Just one bad shed will do no harm to your BP. Just keep the humidity over 50% and the next shed should be one single piece.

Also something that may help, when you notice your BP going blue put some moist Sphagnum moss in their hide to keep the humidity nice and high in there.