Very wrinkly/loose skin horizontally along body...

[redshepherd]

I noticed Cake has been getting increasingly wrinkly horizontally along his body. Not vertically, like I often see in pre-shedding photos. I previously thought it was from getting ready to shed, but now I'm thinking otherwise... His skin feels almost loose and wrinkly horizontally, almost like it's falling down around his spine, and not rotund like my other BP is. It is particularly visible around his neck, with the skin hanging almost transparent below his neck?

He has a tup setup, a large water bowl, and his humidity is constantly around 70%~80%, depending on the day. The LA humidity lately has been around 60% in itself, so even with a ton of holes all over his tub (which now looks like swiss cheese), his humidity just is stuck at around that high. His feeding response is fine and he ate 4 days ago.

I'm hoping it is just from shedding, but just need to make sure... and any advice is appreciated! I can provide photos if needed.

[redshepherd]

Well, here's a photo anyway- sorry it's pretty dark right now. :s You can kind of see the way his skin is folding horizontally along his whole body, hanging down from his spine, and particularly on his neck.

[Lizardlicks]

My initial guess was dehydration but that humidity is p high. Have you seen other clues that he was getting ready to shed like going blue (in albinos you'd notice his eyes turning milky pink instead of red)?

[redshepherd]

My initial guess was dehydration but that humidity is p high. Have you seen other clues that he was getting ready to shed like going blue (in albinos you'd notice his eyes turning milky pink instead of red)?

Yeah, I would have figured dehydration if it weren't for the humidity... Is it at all possible that my Acurite hygrometer is inaccurate? (lol...)

I honestly can not tell whether or not his eyes or skin is getting lighter/milky, because I'm still not familiar with his original coloration. I'd say that his colors maybe look lighter? Maybe that's what I WANT to see, so I can't say for sure...

Also noting that I've been seeing him rubbing his head on his own back last week. Is that a sign of shedding? Whether it is or isn't though, the whole loose overall skin and visible spine shape is worrying me... almost looks like his skin is collapsing down around his spine, if you can imagine.

[Penultimate]

Can you get us a picture of his spine to show us how the skin is collapsing? My first thought is he could be getting too skinny. Has he been eating for you? What do you feed him?

[redshepherd]

Can you get us a picture of his spine to show us how the skin is collapsing? My first thought is he could be getting too skinny. Has he been eating for you? What do you feed him?

Sure, I'll a photo now- I got him around 2 weeks ago, and he's eaten twice. His feeding response is great. He's around 70g and on mice hoppers, which is what the breeder had him on before shipping to me.

[Lizardlicks]

Is it digital or analogue (I think accurite makes both so I want to be sure)? You want the digital one, and you want to make it's in a place where it won't get splashed by the water bowl and double check that it hasn't just been peed on. Other than that, only way to tell if your equipment is faulty is to test with with a control; put it in a place you 100% know the humidity of or put it next to equipment you know to be accurate and compare readings.

If you missed the pink belly or blue phase of shedding it might be very hard to tell for sure, but over all the scales will just look dull and colors sort of washed out.

I'm not sure if too high humidity can give a snake saggy skin, someone with more experience there will have to weigh in on this.

[Lizardlicks]

Can you get us a picture of his spine to show us how the skin is collapsing? My first thought is he could be getting too skinny. Has he been eating for you? What do you feed him?

Does not look like a skinny snake from the first pic. He's got a nice round body shape. If he was too thin you'd see a more triangle shaped animal. Sounds like he's doing great food wise too if he's already got two meals in him with you in that amount of time, and hoppers are the right size for his weight.

[Penultimate]

Is it digital or analogue (I think accurite makes both so I want to be sure)? You want the digital one, and you want to make it's in a place where it won't get splashed by the water bowl and double check that it hasn't just been peed on. Other than that, only way to tell if your equipment is faulty is to test with with a control; put it in a place you 100% know the humidity of or put it next to equipment you know to be accurate and compare readings.

If you missed the pink belly or blue phase of shedding it might be very hard to tell for sure, but over all the scales will just look dull and colors sort of washed out.

I'm not sure if too high humidity can give a snake saggy skin, someone with more experience there will have to weigh in on this.

High humidity shouldn't give a snake saggy skin, at least, not from what I've seen. I live in a humid area with my snake room generally being 50% humidity or more. I do what I can to lessen this, but every once in a while the weather gets ridiculously wet and there's nothing I can do. I haven't noticed any issues with saggy skin during particularly humid weather.

[Lizardlicks]

Yeah, it just seems like the only thing off on the husbandry that would cause an issue. 70-80 constant is nuts considering they usually only need 70 when they're about to shed. But if he is about to shed then that would be fine.

This one's a chin scratcher for me.