What happens if a rainbow boa is too dry for too long?

I was at a local petco earlier and the rainbow boa's humidity was at 20%! It was in shed too! And it made me wonder, what does happen if it stays in way too low humidity for too long? Does it get sick? Simply die of dehydration?
I've never had a snake go more than a couple days with too low humidity and I've only ever had one bad shed because of it so I have zero experience with illness or anything caused by too low humidity

The first symptom I have noticed is stuck or bad shedding, this can lead to blindness or injury if it is not treated or handled (eyecaps being retained after a few sheds can be really bad, same with the tips of the tail). From there I would assume the snake would dehydrate with every breath, as with monitors like Savannahs, greatly reducing the snake's lifespan. It may also end up impacted, and with internal organ failure.

Respiratory infenctions are more likely to occur if the humidity is off, either too high or too low. Ultimately the snake will die, well before its time.

They get sick, dehydrate, and eventually die.

If you want to complain call their corporate office.

DO NOT BUY IT THINKING YOU ARE "SAVING" IT. All that you are doing is improving their bottom line and the store will get another snake to neglect in its place.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

They get sick, dehydrate, and eventually die.

If you want to complain call their corporate office.

DO NOT BUY IT THINKING YOU ARE "SAVING" IT. All that you are doing is improving their bottom line and the store will get another snake to neglect in its place.

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Oh I know, I try to avoid buying anything there. Occasionally I have had to buy rats but not anymore, I just go in and look when I have nothing else to do. I am a little wary of complaining since it's not at near death. All animals I've complained about in the past, even the relatively healthy ones with just things like off humidity or stuck shed or something simple, all disappear within two days of my complaining, and only those specific animals. They'll tell me things like "oh, he died" even if it was a fairly healthy animal, or "oh, we sold all of them" like someone would come in and buy all the sick animals overnight. I'm concerned about what they do with them

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

The first symptom I have noticed is stuck or bad shedding, this can lead to blindness or injury if it is not treated or handled (eyecaps being retained after a few sheds can be really bad, same with the tips of the tail). From there I would assume the snake would dehydrate with every breath, as with monitors like Savannahs, greatly reducing the snake's lifespan. It may also end up impacted, and with internal organ failure.

Respiratory infenctions are more likely to occur if the humidity is off, either too high or too low. Ultimately the snake will die, well before its time.

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Ah, alright. As I've never had any issues with repeat stuck shed or long term low humidity, I didn't really know what could happen other than the issues I've read about caused by stuck shed (blindness, necrotic tails, etc). I didn't know that low humidity also caused respiratory infections, good to know.

Most things can be avoided with proper husbandry, in this case the topic was humidity issues.

With humidity is a vast array of possible issues, primarily related to over or underhydration and disease. With too high of a humidity for a reptile you are saturating their lungs with too much water. This can lead to resporatory infection as well as dry drowning. Bacteria will spread rapidly through their lung tissue and lead to RI. If the humidity is too high their environment will begin to grow mold, mildew, and propogate bacteria. All of which is potentially fatal to the animal.

Too low of a humidity dries out their lung tissue and generates stress on the animal, their immune system will begin to fail and bacteria which is normally kept in check will be able to propogate, leading to RI.

In general there is a band of safe temperatures and humidities for the animal, and if this environment is not met, its immune system may fail, which leads to all kinds of health issues.

Yesterday I went into Petco for betta food. They had three baby ball pythons, and one looked awful. It was very thin, and the skin on its sides sagged down to form a line. It had pieces of stuck shed stuck to it. It had dull looking hazy eyes like was either going into shed or had stuck eye caps, I don't have enough experience to tell which, or maybe both. Its head looked big compared to its skinny body. It took a lot of will power (and knowing I don't have an extra cage) to leave it behind. I know they'll only replace it if it sells before it dies. And no, I'm not going back there for it. But I can't help feeling bad about the situation.

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Originally Posted by butterballpython

Yesterday I went into Petco for betta food. They had three baby ball pythons, and one looked awful. It was very thin, and the skin on its sides sagged down to form a line. It had pieces of stuck shed stuck to it. It had dull looking hazy eyes like was either going into shed or had stuck eye caps, I don't have enough experience to tell which, or maybe both. Its head looked big compared to its skinny body. It took a lot of will power (and knowing I don't have an extra cage) to leave it behind. I know they'll only replace it if it sells before it dies. And no, I'm not going back there for it. But I can't help feeling bad about the situation.

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So call and complain
http://www.petco.com/contact-us
1 (877) 738-6742

I complained about why they have crickets in the rainbow boa cage last week and yesterday I went again to get some pinkies and they did nothing about it. I really feel sorry for the animals at Petsmart and Petco

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