Florida King's eye caps not shedding

[GordonAbbott]

Hi all,

I've been lurking here for over a year before I bought my Milk Snake and the information here has been invaluable. I have a new issue for me and I'm hoping someone can help me out with it.

Recently I "rescued" a 16 year old female Florida King. She's a great snake and seems well cared for, but the people I got her from didn't want her around anymore and went so far as to release her in the yard for about 4 months figuring there were mice living near their shed so she should be good. They put her back in her cage after finding the cat playing with her in the back yard. So when my wife talked to them and learned about the snake, she contacted me and I agreed to take her off their hands. She was living in a little enclosure not too much bigger than a 10g fish tank (definitely smaller than a 20L). The one thing they mentioned is that her eye caps were retained on her last shed. I soaked her in water for an hour or so, put baby oil on the caps, and tried gently pulling them off with Scotch tape but no luck. I didn't know when her last shed was so I just let her be and waited for the next shed. Well a week or so back I noticed she looked a little duller and figured she was going into a shed although I'm not too familiar with Florida Kings and without the eye caps going blue it's hard to tell. But I kept her new cage (big plastic bin with under cage heating) above 70% humidity and waited. Sure enough Sunday I checked on her and she had a perfect shed. The problem is that her eyes are still cloudy. I misted the heck out of her enclosure, put baby oil on her eye caps and waited overnight. No luck. Tried the Scotch tape again and no luck.

So what's going on? She eats well and seems in fine health other than the eyes. She's about 4ft long (based on her shed), about 344 grams, and eats a rat pup every 7 days just fine. I can't say for certain that it's only been since her last shed that she's been like this, just have to take their word. Is it an age thing? Is it an eye problem and not just the eye caps? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks everybody.

[wilomn]

Dry the eyes off, don't use baby oil again, and try duct or gorilla tape, press it right on the cap. If they don't come off that way, wait until her next shed, us NO oil and try the tape again. It won't have any ill effect on her to have a couple of caps on and I would be the next time she sheds you'll be able to help her with tape.