Terribad Shed

[MrLang]

I'm new to BPs and have had my female for about 2 months. I got her at a pet store and she was overall pretty thin and even slightly wrinkly in the neck when I got her. She eats fine but I have not seen her sip from the water bowl the way my bumble bee does.

Since I got her, I'd say her tone has been a bit dull. 16 days ago her eyes fogged up and I fed her and then left her be. Around this time I got my hygrometer in the mail and noticed the humidity in my room was about 25% (god damn Massachusetts winter) and immediately wrapped the lid in foil and bought a humidifier, where I've managed to keep the tank at 70-80% since. 7 days in she broke a bit of skin loose around her lip and on one side of her face. About 10 days in I noticed that she was getting wrinkly, like, really wrinkly. I soaked her for about 15 minutes in 85ish degree water, figuring she was a bit dehydrated but not too far off from the norm. It was only 15 minutes because she was thrashing around like crazy and I felt bad. At day 14 she did not look to be having a good time. At this point, the wrinkles went from being solely across her body the short way to being somewhat visible down the length of the snake, especially around the neck. On Day 15 I put the snake in another bath because it was clear to me that dehydration was a big issue here. Kept her in for 30 minutes and she seemed less freaked out this time. Last night, I bathed her for 30 minutes, changed the water, and left her for another 30. This time I could see her rubbing against the bath towel that I left in the tub. After the tub, I left her in a pillow case with a wet towel in her cage at 83ish degrees for another 30 minutes. The bath literally appeared to have plumped her up. My best analogy here is that she looked very much like a raisin and got rehydrated into a grape. She's a little bit wrinkly today but not even close to what she was a few days ago. I think I will continue daily baths until she looks normal.

TL;DR (dang, you're probably mad that you read all of that when here's the really simple question)

At what point (days, visible cues, whatever) do I need to manually aid in her shed? I have some shed aid. When do I need to aid at least the tip of her tail as a bare minimum? Any suggestions for this process? I'm getting the impression that she's either too weak to rub or doesn't know how.

HAAAAAAAAALP!

[Ezekiel285]

If the humidity is right from the get go there usually isn't any reason to aid in the shedding, this one started off bad so that's why it took so long, Also I wouldn't give baths unless she has already started to shed and its stuck, if you bathe her before she has shed (when its just starting to peel on her face) then you are removing the oils under her skin that are needed for her to shed. Also i'm confused about what you are talking about with the dehydration, as long as she has a water bowl and the humidity is right she won't be dehydrated. And it wouldn't take multiple baths to get her "rehydrated". I would just make sure to get the humidity right for next time. Good luck!

[DC Reptiles]

What I've had to do with bad sheds before is putting them in a container, like what you would get a snake from at a reptile show those circular containers. I place pretty damp paper towels in there and leave the snake over night. By morning the shed should be removed. This method has worked for me great the few times I have to use it.

[MrLang]

Cool, thanks. I have read a few places that lengthwise wrinkles equates to dehydration. Also, I have not seen any pictures or videos of a snake this wrinkled before. I can post a pic I took later on to illustrate.

Any input on how long before a stuck shed becomes a concern on the tip of the tail?

[mattchibi]

If the humidity is right from the get go there usually isn't any reason to aid in the shedding, this one started off bad so that's why it took so long, Also I wouldn't give baths unless she has already started to shed and its stuck, if you bathe her before she has shed (when its just starting to peel on her face) then you are removing the oils under her skin that are needed for her to shed. Also i'm confused about what you are talking about with the dehydration, as long as she has a water bowl and the humidity is right she won't be dehydrated. And it wouldn't take multiple baths to get her "rehydrated". I would just make sure to get the humidity right for next time. Good luck!

Yup this is spot on. Soaking before a snake tries to shed on its own will only make it harder for them to get it off. Im assuming your bp has already tried shedding some of it off, the old skin that it was not able to get off is called "stuck shed". The reason stuck shed can be bad is because when it dries up, it can possibly shrink and constrict blood flow. You will have to gauge yourself how badly it is stuck. Generally, people suggest soaking for 15-20 minutes; however, I have found that with really bad stuck sheds, the old skin needs more time to actually soak up the water in order to become more loose and stretchy. If the stuck shed is bad, soak from 30-60 minutes and try to get as much off as possible in one sitting. Make sure the temps are above 80. When the old skin becomes wet or soggy enough, you will actually have to assist the shedding, in other words, you will need to use a damp towel and your hands to "roll" the old skin off. There's sticky's and plenty of threads about stuck sheds, just search "stuck shed" in the search bar above, thats what I did and I found tons of helpful threads. You need to apply only gentle pressure, if the skin has been soaked enough you wont need to pull much to get it off. Make sure you dont pull too hard because scales can come off. Here is a picture of my lesser after my first soaking session, where I managed to get half of her shed off. It was stuck from neck to tail, but as you can see in this picture, I managed to get a lot off. The parts that still retain the "stuck" shed appear whiter in colour, almost like the whitish glaze, I dont have Microsoft Paint otherwise I would have drawn some arrows in to show you. If you look at the picture, there is still stuck shed on her tail as well as on her body (just above her head in the pic). Good luck!



Edit: to answer your last question, I believe stuck shed on the tail only really becomes a big deal if its covering the vents.

[MrLang]

So the snake looking like a raisin isn't something to be alarmed about or isn't unusual? She's much less raisin-y now, but I'm curious if my reaction to soak her was just first shed panic or of it was actually out of the ordinary. In all of the pictures and videos I've seen, no snake has looked like this.

Her spine is kind of squiggly which indicates a high level of discomfort to me. She's had the small amount of loose skin on her lip for over a week at this point.

My gut tells me this animal needs assistance, but I don't want to disturb the natural process if these things are normal (raisin wrinkles across the whole body, kinked spine)

[Ezekiel285]

So the snake looking like a raisin isn't something to be alarmed about or isn't unusual? She's much less raisin-y now, but I'm curious if my reaction to soak her was just first shed panic or of it was actually out of the ordinary. In all of the pictures and videos I've seen, no snake has looked like this.

Her spine is kind of squiggly which indicates a high level of discomfort to me. She's had the small amount of loose skin on her lip for over a week at this point.

My gut tells me this animal needs assistance, but I don't want to disturb the natural process if these things are normal (raisin wrinkles across the whole body, kinked spine)

Well yes, NOW she needs assistance, did she a week ago when you first gave her a bath? No.

The raisin-y look is just because her body is covered in loose skin. Just make sure you keep her humidity up and at this point baths probably wouldn't hurt, just don't be so quick to jump to baths next time.

[MrLang]

There she is a week ago before the first bath. In the future, I can disregard this kind of look? All of the research I've done on sheds has never shown a BP like this before. You'd think someone would include that so people don't freak out...


unless of course this picture shows a reason to freak out (as I did)