Dehydrated/underweight

[Bogertophis]

There it is. Thank you all for commenting on his weight and skin. It’s truly a learning curve for new keepers, and for people who actually care about their pets, it comes with a lot of worry. My son (8) said “wow, our forum sure is helpful. It’s nice of them to do that. They don’t HAVE to. They’re just nice.” We both thank you—y’all are great.

Hopefully any dehydration issues are under control and his weight will plump with the bigger foods. I haven’t found his eye caps yet, as there’s still a piece connected under his chin. I’ll check him in the morning to see if he can get it off and look for retained eye caps. For those of you finding this thread for a similar issue with your snake, his saggy neck wrinkles went away and his side wrinkles are also gone. Looks like it was mostly due to a shed cycle, but he did also need better humidity too.

If you study your pre-shed pics, pay close attention to how the "wrinkles" look for a future heads-up as to when he might be shedding. With experience, it becomes obvious, but until you learn what to look for, it can be stressful & confusing, especially with a white/or pale snake. Fortunately it all gets easier- it's really cool that your son is able to learn right along with you. That's part of why we do what we do here.

Now about that stuck chin: don't wait very long, as it will only get MORE STUCK. Seriously, I'd personally work that off manually, after misting his chin for a while to soften it as much as you can. You have to be very careful, but what I do is carefully loosen it right at the edge of the snake's mouth; it usually helps to work from front to back (because that's the direction the scales overlap). He won't appreciate your help one bit, except in the long run... But if you're gently persistent (with gentle restraint- not a vise-grip), you'll get it done even though you're working right around his mouth- I've never had a snake bite me for helping them shed, but I'm not saying they sit still & cooperate either, nor do they send me a thank you note afterwards...

If he shed the top of his head but the eye caps are "missing", I'd be willing to bet he's still wearing them, so while you're misting his chin, I'd be misting his eyes too. They're miserable to remove if stuck on too long. Did you check the tail tip? Make sure no shed is stuck there also, because that will cause the death of tissue & loss of the tail tip. There's very poor circulation in the tail tip to begin with, so it doesn't take much stuck-shed to cut off blood circulation.

[GuardianHunter]

I was able to help him with his chin. I can’t find the shed to his head at all, but I also don’t see where it would even still be on him. Here’s a few shots of his face. Tell me if you see anything worrisome. I thought maybe his head shed got wadded up in the towels or something he was rubbing on.