Dry skin problem

[burmer]

I have a slight problem with my borneo. He had a RI for a few weeks. I lowered the humidity and raised temps. The RI cleared up and he is doing fine and eating like theres no tomorrow. The problem is his skin is a little dried out. Besides soaking is there anything I can put on him to moisten him up a little bit. I was thinking of a skin lotion. I'm not sure if it's safe or not. I'd appreciate any input on this.

[Jeff_Favelle]

RI's are not cured by lowering the humidity. Higher temps are good, but lowering the humidity does nothing to help an RI. Raising the humidity is usually suggested (along with an increase in temps) for RI problems.

I would just use 2 water basins in the enclosure with one being on the hot spot/heat pad. This will raise the humidity about 10-30% and that should be adequate. Don't look for quick fixes. Even if a lotion did work, it wouldn't solve the problem, it would only deal with a symptom. Its like a band-aid on a cut. Don't get cut in the first place.

[burmer]

When I lowered the humidity, I only lowered it to 60%. The RI cleared up nicely.

[Jeff_Favelle]

How can you be sure the RI cleared up due to lower humidity rather than higher temperatures?

[burmer]

I believe it was a combination of the two.

[Jerome]

well i don't know what RI is but if you want your snake to have healthy skin you need to give it baths and add humidity so that your can shead its skin & feed it healthy rats so that your snake can grow a new healthy skin.

[burmer]

An RI is a respiratory infection. I do a once a week soak for an hour. He has a large soaking tub in his enclosure as well. He is on cypress mulch which does keep humidity up and the patch of skin on him is looking much better. He eats very well on some huge F/T jumbo rats.

[Pythonian]

when my blood had an RI .. i lowered the humidty and he got better..

mike

[burmer]

Raising temps and lowering humidity is always what I've been told to do for an RI.