My BP seems to have a COMPLETELY stuck shed, help!

[Nhernandez]

I'm a new BP owner, and I've had Salem for about 1 1/2 months now. She's always eaten easily and had all your typical healthy BP characteristics: lazy during the day, more active at night, extremely calm temperament when being handled, and never declined a meal. I could tell about 2 weeks ago she was probably getting ready to shed because she had some small wrinkles at the bend of her neck and her color was starting to dull. Her eyes never really turned blue (I might have missed it). Anywho, we've had a warmer fall here in Alabama this year, so humidity was relatively easy to keep up at around 60%, so I thought we were good. Well, I went out of town for 2 days and it just so happens that's when temperatures dropped drastically and I returned home to a tank that was down to 20% humidity and a REALLY wrinkly Salem!! I'm worried sick because I guess she tried to shed, but couldnt because humidity was so low. She had a few scraggly pieces of shed on her face that she rubbed off, but it totally didn't shed ANYWHERE else on her body. So for the past 3 days I've upped the humidity to 80-90% by misting, adding a water bowl, and covering 2/3 of the screen top with a damp towel. She's seemed so lethargic, and I can't tell if she's also really dehydrated. I gave her a 10 min warm bath the day after I saw her so wrinkled, but it didn't help any with shedding, it only helped her to use the bathroom. Last night I ran to PetSmart and bought some Shedding Aid and sprayed it onto her and massaged her. Still no difference today. I'm panicking because I'm not sure what else to do. I started sobbing looking at her because I'm afraid I'm causing her a lot of discomfort, and I'm so worried about her harboring an infection under dry skin that won't shed. I saw where another user (tigerlily) recommended a shallow warm bath for 45 min to an hour in a plastic container INSIDE of the enclosure and then to rub. But it just doesn't look like there's anywhere to help rub the shed off because it's all still attached I'm sorry if I rambled too long, please help!

[gaitedappy]

The first thing you need to do is calm down. Then try the longer bath with the rub down of a wet cloth or paper towel after. I'm sure some people who are more experienced with stuck shed will comment soon with more advice.

[M.P.C]

I would skip the unneded stress of the bath for now... Get some paper towl and wet it with warm water and ring it out so its damp... Throw that in her hide a combo of that and ehat your doing to up the tanks humidity should be more then enough and give her a day or so to work the shed off her self. Just take a step back and calm down stuck shed is not life threatning unless its a reoccuring thing

[Nhernandez]

Okay... Not life threatening. That's what I need to hear.
I guess I've just always been a dog person, it's always easy to know when things aren't going well with a dog, and they're pretty darn easy to care for. They like human temperatures and human beds and human homes. But snakes? It seems there are so many little factors to take into account, so when I wake up in the morning (especially the last few days) I'm nervous to see what condition she's going to be in. but I'm reaaally enjoying having her and learning to care for her as best as I can.
But I really appreciate it! For now, I'll just add the warm damp paper towels and see how that works for her the rest of today.

[ItsAllNew2Me!]

+1 M.P.C.

Hi I have had a similar issue with one of my balls (Chaos). He really likes to hang out in his hide mostly so what i did was wet a bunch of paper towels and put it under the hide with him. The heat from the uth and the cover from the hide (bowl) allowed for a lot of concentration of moisture for him and he sits in there anyway so no stress being in a bath. I did this one evening and woke up to a perfect completion of the shed. I would not keep this setup as a permanent thing as this is too high of a moisture level for too long. Don't panic and good luck!!

[Streller]

Looks like you have all the assistance you need here, keep that paper towel in there overnight, ensure that when you go to bed, it's moist, and then by the morning you might see that the shed is gone. I advise that you use the paper towel method every time that a shed comes round, and try and put the towel into the favored hide of your BP. Or, if you don't like paper towel, buy some sphagnum moss.

[M.P.C]

Looks like you have all the assistance you need here, keep that paper towel in there overnight, ensure that when you go to bed, it's moist, and then by the morning you might see that the shed is gone. I advise that you use the paper towel method every time that a shed comes round, and try and put the towel into the favored hide of your BP. Or, if you don't like paper towel, buy some sphagnum moss.

This is exactly what i do...my humidity stays at 50% so once i see the blue eyes i start putting the paper towls in her fav hide and i have had nothing but 1 piece sheds since doing this method

[Nhernandez]

Looks like you have all the assistance you need here, keep that paper towel in there overnight, ensure that when you go to bed, it's moist, and then by the morning you might see that the shed is gone. I advise that you use the paper towel method every time that a shed comes round, and try and put the towel into the favored hide of your BP. Or, if you don't like paper towel, buy some sphagnum moss.

Okay thank you so much! I ordered some sphagnum moss yesterday, so it should be here soon. And it's okay to put the moist paper towel down in the cooler side of the tank with her? She won't catch a cold if the paper towel gets really cool throughout the night? I guess if it chills her, she'll move to the warm hide, so I could put them under both hides, right? Sorry if that's a stupid question. But you all have really helped to calm my nerves a lot.

and last question, is it okay to try and feed her? I usually feed her once every 5 days and it's about that time, but I also don't want to wear her out too much if she's already exhausted.

[Albert Clark]

You can also consider switching your substrate to cypress mulch as a overall change. That will help to stabilize the humidity on a regular basis. Another measure is to purchase a "versa top" for the appropriate sized gallon tank.

[Nhernandez]

Just in case this helps someone in the future, here's an update!

i attempted the moist paper towel method for about 24-36 hours. It helped to make a few more small scraggly pieces start showing themselves under her belly. I decided it still looked like she needed help so I went ahead and did the warm bath in the plastic container WITHIN my enclosure. I added a rolled up rag in the center of the box for her to rest on and have something to rub her body on. I also added just a FEW drops of olive oil to the water to help with softness. I didn't need to soak her for more than 30 minutes and she had already managed to remove 90% of the stuck shed. After taking her out, I let her slide through a warm wet rag to get any last pieces off.
Unfortunately she still has some stuck shed on the top of her head including one retained eye cap. I tried removing the eye cap gently with a q-tip, but had no luck. I suppose I'll have to wait until the next shed like some have recommended.

So if anyone else ever comes across this post for the same reason, don't stress out. (Great advice from the previous posters!) It can be a longer process to finally see it start to shed in tiny pieces. At that point, a warm bath DOES help. Im looking forward to making a humid hide for her with sphagnum moss in the very near future to avoid this happening again.

Thanks for everyone's help!