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Sand boa help please!!
Hey there! This is my first time posting as well as my first time owning a snake.
My Sand Boa is about 8-10 months old. When I got her the breeder said she has shed about 2 weeks prior. Then she shed about two weeks after I got her and now 2 weeks later she is in shed again. is this normal???
She has also been a good eater but didn’t come out to eat last weekend and just refused food today. She did eat two pinkies in a row on the 9th and that was the first time she has been given two at a time. I would love some thoughts here.
i just don’t know what to do exactly and im finding limited resources on her specific type of snake.
She looks kinda oddly wrinkly right now as well (like when she bends her body) . I don’t know if that’s normal in shed (I left her alone and she stayed buried most of the last shed so I didn’t realy see her). But her eyes are milky and she has a big piece of shed near her head so I know she’s shedding
Last edited by TheWildChild; 06-16-2019 at 06:50 PM.
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For young snakes like yours, this sounds pretty normal to me. I've kept many kinds, not KSB specifically, but here's the thing: you said she's a good
feeder, and young & small snakes like sand boas can only eat small prey that's digested quickly, so they do a LOT of eating, which results in a lot of shedding, since
that's how they grow. It's normal for a snake to refuse food when they are in a shed cycle (often they start refusing before it's even obvious to us...somehow they
know) and what you're seeing right now (wrinkly) is normal, though you might want to offer a "humid hide" right now, while she's shedding, to help things along:
the fact that some old skin has already come off but not all at once (especially since her eyes are still cloudy) it suggests she is overly dry & may need a little help.
Does she have a water bowl? shedding requires extra moisture from the snake's body (they actually secrete some moisture between the old & new skin to help the
old skin come off) and guess what? digestion also requires hydration from the snake's body, so the fact that she ate a bigger meal recently is why she is now having
a bit of trouble with shedding. Some snakes will still accept food when going into a shed, but personally, if I know about it, they don't get fed, as I don't like to deal
with stuck sheds. So like I said, fix up a "humid hide" A.S.A.P.- even if it's just damp paper towels in a hide, rather than moist moss. Make sure after she sheds that
her eye caps shed OK, also check her tail tip...a few missed sheds left on a tail tip can result in the death of the tissue underneath (since the blood circulation is so
easily cut off by the tight skin) & they can lose part of their tail that way.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
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The Following User Says Thank You to Bogertophis For This Useful Post:
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Registered User
Re: Sand boa help please!!
I have 2 young KSBs and while their great eaters normally, they do occasionally refuse a meal. But other than when I first brought them home (they refused to eat for a few weeks), they typically only miss one meal and resume feeding the next time. My snakes' skin always looks oddly wrinkly right before they're about to shed, too. I don't know how you keep your enclosure, but I keep mine in a tub with aspen shavings as a substrate and a water bowl large enough for them to soak in (although I've never seen them use it). I noticed they kept having stuck shed, too, until I added in something for them to rub against to remove the shed. May have been coincidence (they shed a couple of times with no problems without the added rocks), but it might be worth a try in addition to the humid hide.
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The Following User Says Thank You to redpandakitty For This Useful Post:
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TheWildChild, did your snake end up shedding OK? Hope so...just want to say you wouldn't want to leave any sort of "humid hide" in their cage all the time...I only
suggested that for temporary use to facilitate the shedding process that seemed to be stalled, just to be clear.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
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Registered User
Re: Sand boa help please!!
Originally Posted by Bogertophis
TheWildChild, did your snake end up shedding OK? Hope so...just want to say you wouldn't want to leave any sort of "humid hide" in their cage all the time...I only
suggested that for temporary use to facilitate the shedding process that seemed to be stalled, just to be clear.
He/ she should be fine. They'll disappear while in shed, really disappear (not like normal barely see disappear), and shedding is good. Your snake is eating and shedding. Perfect.
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