Our snake is going through a bad shed.(Head & neck skin remains)

[Superpop]

Admittedly it is totally our own fault for not keeping her humidity at a good level even though we tried to do so with a wet towel on her screen top and by misting but since winter came to minnesota it has been so DRY in the house.

Anyway just a few days ago we got her a new hinged screen top and we did the tin foil treatment as well as put spagnum moss in her enclosure and that fixed the humidity issue....too late though.

My boyfriend and I went out of town for a few days about a week ago and had a friend come over to change her water and towel. We had obviously missed the period when her eyes clouded over when we were gone and then all of a sudden she started to actually shed her skin the same day we "fixed" the humidity problem.

It's a bad shed....

We tried this method the next day:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...hed-No-problem.

It helped enormously....nothing came off on the wash cloth but she started rubbing in her enclosure and the next day all of her of her skin was shed from her neck down. Now she still has to shed the skin on her head and neck.

We tried the " wet pillow case method" the next night but it didn't do anything whatsoever. Tonight we tried the first method again and now her neck skin is starting to come off. (NOTHING is coming off her head or her eyes though)


We are both feeling VERY bad at this point because we know it's our own fault! Her humidity is at shedding levels now (70% but we worry about keeping it that high for so long) We don't want her getting a RI.

Snakes shed from the front to the back and at this point her neck will be shed tomorrow but her head is not budging! Her eyes are messed up looking with dents and some skin has "flaked" around her mouth but IT ISN'T peeling!

I am confident when she gets though this shed she won't have another bad shed considering we fixed her humidity but.....

how can we get her to shed on her head????

I am panicking at this point!

[thedarkwolf25]

Typically eye dents mean that she is dehydrated but if your humidity is at 70% then that should change pretty soon. As for the head and eyes I'm not sure, we just got our little girl not long ago and her head shed fine (it was the rest that was a bad shed). Hopefully some of the more experienced members have some advice for you.

[snakesRkewl]

I use

Sterilite tub with lid
1 to 1 1/2 inches of 85 degree water
towel in water
half log hide on that(the only good use for a half log hide, lol)
the snake will rub its face on the log hide

30 minute soak and if it's not off then replace water and do 30 more minutes.

[Superpop]

So she now was soaked for the 5th day in a row tonight and still her head skin and spectacles remain.

As of 2 days ago her eyes are no longer "dented" so I guess that means she is at least no longer dehydrated so that is a baby step in the right direction I guess. We did try and put a half log in the container for her to rub on while soaking but it didn't help at all.

We have no idea what to do anymore except try a "shed aid" spray. I did an advanced google search of this entire website to find posts mentioning shed aids and many people say the shed aids have worked for them and many others just say the shed aids are worthless and that doing a soak a day or 2 in a row will do the trick....it's been 5 days in a row now and as I already stated the first soak worked wonders because 75% of her skin was shed by the next morning but there has been very little progress since then because its not like she wants to put her head underwater when she is being soaked and that is now the only problem area.(She has shed completely backwards as only her head and a small area of neck remains to be shed)

I don't know what else to do at this point other then try a spray...

Going to go to petco tomorrow to get this:

http://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.as...yviewedproduct

at 2.25 fl oz for over 6 bucks it seems ridiculously overpriced but we don't know what else to do at this point. (of course any further advice would be VERY WELCOME though!)

[Quacking-Terror]

When my bp had his first shed with me, it was a bad one. I put him in a damp pillowcase for 20 minutes at a time (re-wetting the pillowcase after 20 minutes)for about an hour and I gently pulled any loose skin pieces off, eventually doing this I got the skin on his head and neck off, including eyecaps. Also covering the tank with plastic wrap instead of foil has worked wonders for my humidity levels . Hope this helps!

[Superpop]

When my bp had his first shed with me, it was a bad one. I put him in a damp pillowcase for 20 minutes at a time (re-wetting the pillowcase after 20 minutes)for about an hour and I gently pulled any loose skin pieces off, eventually doing this I got the skin on his head and neck off, including eyecaps. Also covering the tank with plastic wrap instead of foil has worked wonders for my humidity levels . Hope this helps!

We were having humidity level problems before(When winter first arrived here in MN) but now with the tin foil and moss it is quite easy to even keep it at shedding level humidity....it was too late though.(and when she is finally done shedding we will just remove some of the moss until her humidy levels go back down to 60%) The tin foil and moss is working though.

While I do appreciate your suggestion her humidity problem is now fixed...and we have no issues even keeping it at even 70% anymore.....it happened too late though.

As for the "pillow case method" we tried that as well as I have already stated...it didn't do anything for her.(The only thing that worked was her first "soak" but since then....very little progress)

[dr del]

Hi,

The biggest problem is they really do not like having their head touched.

But sometimes we have to just bite the bullet and do it anyway. They will squirm - and on particularly unpleasant occasions crap all over you.

Don't waste money on shed aid - just soak her for half an hour and remove the stuck shed by hand. You can use a spray bottle if it starts drying out and sticking.

BUT you have to be really careful when you are doing it - especially around her eyes when removing the spectacles.

I usually start by rubbing around the lips at the side of the head to get it started then work forward until I get the nose free and then use that to peel slowly back.

Sometimes they just get lazy and stop trying to shed.


dr del

[Quacking-Terror]

Del, I've read that they don't like their heads touched, but when he's not in shed, Gene doesn't seem to mind. As long as I handle him for a few minutes and slowly work my way up his neck to his head and don't go in from the 'front' of his face so he doesn't see a huge hand coming at him, he doesn't seem to have an issue with it. I think he's part dog, he's just that relaxed.

[MitsuMike]

Tried to help you before...........I hope you listen now.

Keep doing what your doing (you can do it up to 2 times a day) but more might stress out the guy.
Steps:
-Soak like your doing
-After the soak let the snake do it's thing but try to keep him under somewhat control
-Grab a q-tip and start to rub on the snakes face, if he is still head shy then your going to have to "hold him down". One person hold the snakes head (thumb where the neck and head meet on the top and the index finger under the throat. Don't apply to much pressure but just enough to restrain the snake, we don't want an injury to happen)
-Now the second person needs to just warm water to wet the q-tip and rub the front of the nose where the heat pits are. Keep doing this until you see a separation of the white skin from the real skin. From there just pull back on the skin and just pray the eye caps come with it or your looking at a whole different issue.

Hope this helps

Also high humidity is FINE. As long as you don't have condensation on the walls it's ok to keep the tank at 80% to help with shed. I personally keep the tubs at 80-90% right when the eyes go blue until they shed.

PS that crap at Petco is not worth it. Keep with natural humidity and soaking.

[Superpop]

Tried to help you before...........I hope you listen now.

First of all I want to say that you were on ignore (Which is advice I was given over private message) after our previous interactions. The only reason I even saw your reply to this thread is because I wasn't actually logged in at the time.

What you gave me in the other thread was not "advice"....It was bullying. Since you are trying to be helpful without bullying this time I have decided to remove you from ignore.

But let me give you some advice....I'm sure you probably know way more about reptiles than I do(although that doesn't mean I will always or ever follow what you have to say) but in the future try to have some TACT when responding to people. On a forum such as this many people are looking for advice and sometimes you can be quite nasty and confrontational. You also insinuated things about me that are untrue. I have also found other instances where you responded to people in the same way. If you are going to give advice to people please try to do so in a reasonable manner.

As for the other thread people were giving me advice on things I was not asking for because I didn't want a new enclosure....I wanted a new lid to her enclosure and we ended up finding one that now works. On our own we were able to finally find a "hinged" screen top that fits her tank. The one piece of advice that worked for us in that thread was the "tin foil treatment" which worked far better then the "wet towels" we were using before"(and I just went back to that thread and thanked dr del for that tin foil advice)

This snake isn't even "mine". It's my boyfriends because he is the one who wanted one. While I am an animal lover in general I grew up with "birds" and never have owned a dog or cat(although I want a puggle someday) I am the one doing all this research for our snake so she can hopefully have a good life. He is just the one paying for everything. I did quickly become attached to her though.

Anyway after doing research on here I am confident her vivarium is set up properly.

Moving on....

Keep doing what your doing (you can do it up to 2 times a day) but more might stress out the guy.
Steps:
-Soak like your doing
-After the soak let the snake do it's thing but try to keep him under somewhat control
-Grab a q-tip and start to rub on the snakes face, if he is still head shy then your going to have to "hold him down". One person hold the snakes head (thumb where the neck and head meet on the top and the index finger under the throat. Don't apply to much pressure but just enough to restrain the snake, we don't want an injury to happen)
-Now the second person needs to just warm water to wet the q-tip and rub the front of the nose where the heat pits are. Keep doing this until you see a separation of the white skin from the real skin. From there just pull back on the skin and just pray the eye caps come with it or your looking at a whole different issue.

Hope this helps

Also high humidity is FINE. As long as you don't have condensation on the walls it's ok to keep the tank at 80% to help with shed. I personally keep the tubs at 80-90% right when the eyes go blue until they shed.

PS that crap at Petco is not worth it. Keep with natural humidity and soaking.

Well we already got her that "shed aid" and used it on her tonight. I never thought it would be some wonderful solution but we will see if there is any progress tomorrow.(if not....well we are out of 6 bucks. Oh well)

As for being head shy....she is. she did let my boyfriend wrap a wet wash cloth around his index finger and lightly rub from between her eyes backward but if he tried to start further up near her mouth she got very agitated.

Not only would we both feel uncomfortable holding her head in place but would both FEAR trying to actually grab her skin and try to "pull it off"(everything I have ever read on this forum and everywhere else says thats not good)

Anyway if the spray doesn't work we will continue trying to soak and try wet q-tips but we will never actually try to "peel" her skin off!

I guess If this issue doesn't get resolved soon enough we will have to bring her to the vet and let them get her skin off.