Worst Shed Ever.

[beaglegod]

My female boa went into shed on me and it caught me by surprise, I had noticed her colors darken a bit , but I never saw her eyes cloud up,having just received her a few weeks ago I check on her every day. So I was surprised one day when she had the worst incomplete shed. Ive had a few pythons, and I have my bull snake and have never had an incomplete shed. This one made up for all those. I was fortunate that she had at least removed her shed from over her head and her ocular scales shed nicely but that's about all that shed nicely. I soaked her in tepid water in the bath tub for about an hour and worked most of it off her with my hands but could not get the shed off of her tail, its like cemented on. I could see she was starting to breath laboriously and I didn't want the poor thing to have a heart attack so I put her back in her enclosure with the humidity bumped up to almost 80%.

Any words of advice? Is the shed left on her tail going to cause her trouble? Do boas usually get the cloudy eyes when going into shed or just a dulling of color? I really hope this doesn't happen again.

[TheWinWizard]

I wouldn't worry about the tail for now. It should come off with the next shed. They usually blue up prior to a shed, you must have missed it. Keep the humidity between 50 to 60 % and you should be fine.

[Jason Bowden]

When my boas are about to shed I sometimes notice them getting kinda wrinklely around the neck, etc..
I usually mist my boa cages once or twice a week for humidity. In the wild, most live in rain forests.
Your boa will be fine and the soak was probably enjoyed.

[boadaddy]

Ya they cloud up but clear up pretty quick usually, if my boas ever have a bad shed I soak them with a shed aid for a half hour or more depending on how big the boa is. If it's just the tail you could try spraying a bunch of shed aid on the stuck shed and work it into the dry shed which might work a little better if that's the only area. The best way to tell a shed in boas from what I've seen is their color darkening or dulling out and of course blue eyes, it's definitely harder to tell in a albino or sunglow but their color still dulls. As stated before whenever I do notice a shed I mist and keep the humidity up to try and avoid a bad shed. Good luck hope this helps