Re: Bad shed - how much to intervene?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bogertophis
And for some reason, it's often the neck area (along with the underside of the jaw & throat) that gets stuck the most often, at least in my experience.
I've noticed this also. Feeding actually helps pop stuck shed in this area, as it stretches the skin in the neck underneath the shed and loosens it up.
As long as there's no ring of shed left on the snake I wouldn't worry about any left on the neck or back.
Re: Bad shed - how much to intervene?
Thanks for all the very helpful responses. In no particular order....
1. I am heating the cage from below with a mat and from above with an infrared basking light. Both are now on a herpstat 2 set on the heat/dimmer mode. And I have the daytime temps set up so that the main heating source is the pad and the light is now just creating a basking spot and providing a little extra heat to the air on the warm side. The humidity and temperature have been very consistent since I got that figured out. However, I originally had way too much of the heat coming from the light -- and as someone guessed that caused the tank to dry out too much in between mistings.
2. The people who mentioned NECK skin are spot on. That is exactly where it is worst. She has been very effectively rubbing the shed off her belly and sides without any help. And I had pretty good success getting the back skin off with the soak and washcloths. But she really doesn't like having the top and sides of her neck touched so it's hard to clean those without stressing her. This is my first snake keeping foray, but I trained horses for 30 years and did grad work in wildlife management. Keeping interactions calm and no-stress and putting the animal back while they're still having fun is a cardinal rule for me --especially with a solitary predator that is still settling in and more vulnerable to stress in general. It's pretty hard to keep to that rule AND mess about with her neck and head though! That's a large part of my impulse to be more laissez faire about the shed at least for now.
3. I really like the wet pillowcase/towel idea. One of her favorite activities is crawling into the sleeve of an empty T-shirt and wriggling around inside it exploring "tunnels" and finding good napping spots. So if I pick something similar weight to a T-shirt but rougher texture then she's likely to explore it quite happily. She has also been very happy to rub her neck on my fingers as long as I hold them still and make like a tree. So I'll just try gently making tunnels in the towel for her and letting her wriggle through them....
Looking at everyone's replies so far I think my take away is to (1) leave her alone for a few days to digest but (2) keep misting and putting the damp moss in her hides. Then (3) if she still hasn't shed off the rest of the skin by Saturday I should try the wet towels/pillowcases trick.
Sound like a plan? Any other suggestions?
