Help!!

[trailblazer295]

For the last while my ATB has appeared dry every time I've seen him. Now just his eyes have dried skin covering. His humidity is 60-80%mid cage, he has a humid hide which I've never seen him in and is in a planted cage. The mister turns on for 1min morning and night and I've misted him several times directly on top of it. He has a large water dish he could swim in. I don't what else to do. He eats every time without issue.

[DJC Reptiles]

I don't think he is dry if what your telling me is correct. Snakes can have wrinkled eye spectacles, especially if the eyes are protruding out, and is most commonly seen in ball pythons due to how common they are in the hobby. Most likely your ATB also has wrinkled spectacles, this is completely normal, and must not be mistaken for a retained eye cap. A picture would really help, but this is all I believe it to be. Unless your snake has an underlying disease, (I.e. snake mites) proper shedding should occur at your humidity range.

[EL Ziggy]

Yeah Blaze I can't imagine that's not enough humidity and hydration for your critter. Hopefully he's just prepping for a shed.

[kazz]

may be he has some decease ? and may be bc off too much humidity ?
snake discovery channel says humidity is bull **** and humidity box enough. And too many humidity is much more danger than less humidity.

[Roman]

may be he has some decease ? and may be bc off too much humidity ?
snake discovery channel says humidity is bull **** and humidity box enough. And too many humidity is much more danger than less humidity.

Your statement is correct for a lot of commonly kept reptiles, mainly the snakes or lizards from North America (e.g. corn snakes, king snakes bull snakes and the (not tropical) milk snakes), Europe, Northern Asia or from dry tropical regions like (semi) desserts or savannahs (e.g. ball python). Probably all of them don’t need any higher humidity over an extended period of time, I certainly don’t keep track on the humidity of my European snakes or my milk snake.

However, in the context of this particular thread your statement is (in your own words) "bull ****". Have you even bothered to read on the species in question, or at least thought about it? We are talking about an AMAZON tree boa! What do you expect the average humidity in a tropical RAINforest to be??

If you keep a snake which is adapted to a high humidity environment in an enclosure with low humidity over an extended period of time this can lead to issues like bad sheds, digestion problems up to gout (in German this is called pseudo gout, I don’t know if it translates into English the same way, maybe MDT could help me out on this one), basically crystalline structures are building up in or around internal organs, finally resulting in a sudden death of your snake with no obvious warning. While the most likely cause of this gout may be food related, a low humidity is certainly also a factor. Keeping a tropical snake in a low humidity will not cause it to drop dead from it’s branch immediately, but it will very likely cause serious health issues over an extended period.

Kazz, I am really not out here to harass you, but right in this case your statement is not simply questionable, it is plain wrong. On the other hand, leaving it uncommented might lead someone reading it in the future to actually believe it (after all, it’s an information from the internet!), that’s why I wrote my comment to your statement. If anybody else would have written something like this, I would have done the same (and already did in the past).


@trailblazer: sorry for the Off-topic, but I really think this had to be commented on. About your question, I don’t have any personal experience with ATBs, I can only conclude from my experience with arboreal colubrids like Spilotes or Gonyosoma. From the sound of it your snake might be dehydrated. My Gonyosomas didn’t know what to with their water bowl, I think it took them at least 6 month until they learned to drink from it and both Spilotes and Gonyosoma prefer to drink water droplets sprayed on their body.

Does your snake drink if you spray water directly on it? If so, keep on spraying as long as it drinks, it might not use it’s water bowl at all and the water you spray might not be enough for it. As others already said, the humidity itself seems to be OK, but I suppose the snake is simply not drinking enough.

Roman

[TRD]

Get a squeeze bottle, see if it drinks if you spray on the head (like Roman already said I read now...). Then just offer him like that once or twice a week.

You could also soak the food item in water before giving it so that he takes some extra water in that way.

[trailblazer295]

I got updated pictures that I sent to a few people. General opinion is shedding issue. He was curled up in a cork round so I have stuffed it with moistened moss. I'll report back later. His eyes have cleared up but body does have dry scales.