Here Are Some Steps To Achieve A Good Shed, And Assist Shedding Your Snake

I think the OP wrote this with good intentions but it probably should have been written with more of a "this is what I do" tone to it. :gj:

I have had more than a few hundred, thousand, snakes soak for days at a time during the "blue" phase of the shedding process. Colubrids, pythons, boas, ALL sorts of snakes.

The ones who soak tend to shed better than those who don't.

While the skin is a semi-permiable membrane, I don't think any oils would leach out during soaking while blue.

Have you ever picking up a skin from a water bowl and had it hold water like a balloon? How could any liquid get out of a membrane that is water tight?

I agree that this poster has jumped the gun on giving advice, but I can't fault him for this particular part.

Skin is very permeable and many substances including water can pass through the epidermis. You know how when you've been swimming for a long time or taking a long bath that you get wrinkly? Your skin gets dehydrated and dry. Same thing goes with the snakes. Soaking too much can actually leach the fluids from in between the old and new layers of skin, making the old layer dehydrated and therefore, harder to get off.

As long as the snake is well hydrated and the humidity is where it should be, the snake "shouldn't" have problems shedding. Some are just chronically poor shedders, so we just assist. No biggie.

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Originally Posted by blackcrystal22

I'm sorry, but this is so incredibly wrong.. You never want to soak a snake until after the shedding process has finished and it is having difficulty with stuck or difficult shed.
If you soak the animal pre-shed when it's in it's 'blue phase' your removing special oils that are being secreted to lubricate the skin and prepare it for removal. I have never seen any of my snakes attempt to soak before shedding their skin.
Those oils are why you will notice a 'clear phase' after the 'blue phase' when it appears the snake has already shed because the old skin is filling up with the oils and becoming transparent right before the shed takes place.

So, you see, soaking before a shed will actually make the shed much more difficult for the animal and create more harm than good.

Edit: Also, I have assist-shed many times pulling the scales from both directions.. it really doesn't matter because the shed would rip from pressure far less then it would take for the scales to be pulled off.

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We have done some trading but we had three adult BPs that would always soak while in blue.I am not saying his post is right or wrong.Im just saying.
Mike