Eye Cap Help

[YZGuy79]

Hello guys. One of my balls Daenerys has bad eye caps. I wanted to wait for her to shed but they seem to be getting worse. I'm afraid they might get infected or worse. I've read that you can soak them in a bath then dab mineral oil on them and use tap to try to remove them. But I'm not crazy about this idea. Can you guys point me in the right direction. They've been like this for almost two months now. She hasn't she'd yet but is eating healthy and growing fast. Appreciate all help I can get. And temp and humidity is all good.

[JoshSloane]

At this point I would not worry too much about this. Usually they come off with the next shed. You can try soaking her for 20-30 min and see if that loosens them up. When she goes into shed in the next cycle make sure to up the humidity a ton. I would provide a humid hide with damp cypress moss, and some sporadic soaking should get those caps moving.

IMO there is too much potential for error to manually remove the caps. I have had snakes with stuck eye caps for months and they came off great on the next shed. The stuck caps continue to dry out and might look worse, but there usually isn't any damage to the eye itself underneath.

[readymade]

Not an expert but I'd leave those eye caps alone then I'd keep the humidity on the high side say like 65%-70% till she sheds and i wouldn't let my ambient temps drop below 82°f

Ps: no baths imo

[eveningdahlia]

I just recently made a post about my girl with a bad eye cap. She was much worse off than your's (her good eye looked like your's does) and she just finished her shed this morning and her eye is back to almost brand new. Give it some time, let her shed. Keep her humidity up. Glad to see that you're very much involved and noticing things like this early on! Kudos to you!

[tbowman]

They are easy enough to remove with tweezers. I don't know how it would go in your case seeing as they've been there for awhile.

[YZGuy79]

Can I ask why no baths readymade? I ask BC I've heard that they help promote healthy sheds. But also BC I'm slightly concerned BC I went bath crazy a free weeks ago to battle a mite infestation.

Thanks for the praise eveningdahlia. Obviously I know I'm doing good but its nice to hear from other people too! Plus the snakes are too rude to ever tell me thank you for dinner!

[Eric Alan]

Can I ask why no baths readymade? I ask BC I've heard that they help promote healthy sheds. But also BC I'm slightly concerned BC I went bath crazy a free weeks ago to battle a mite infestation.

Baths/soaking close to a shed actually can have the opposite effect that you might think. This is the time that the BP is producing its own natural lubricant for the shedding process and the skin is the most permeable. If you bathe them/soak them during this time, there is a good chance that the water will basically wash away the natural lubricant and the shed won't happen as easily as it would have if you would have just let them do their thing on their own. Just keep their water bowl filled and the humidity where it needs to be and they'll shed just fine themselves - they've been doing it without our help for quite some time now.

[YZGuy79]

Cool. Thanks for the info. Learn something new everyday. I just wanted to make sure the repeated baths for mites didn't harm them. But I'll take a single bad shed over no mites anyway. Thanks for the help guys

[C2tcardin]

I agree with Eric, you shouldn't have to soak them before a shed, just increase their humidity or use a humid hide if you're really worried. Now every once and a while I may have to soak one after a shed because some skin has stuck. My Pastel Clown for some reason seems to always have a stuck bit of shed on his neck and back portion of his head which is of course their least favorite place to be touched, especially so on this guy. I just put him in a 6 quart tub with a strip of repticarpet in it and a half inch of water for 30 minutes and the shed skin is usually floating in the water.

[YZGuy79]

Hey guys. She finally shed and they came right off. Yay! Happy snek = happy owner.