Dry Skin

[SerpentLust]

Hey Guys

With the coming of winter, the humidity does down. I checked on my Spotted today and her skin on her belly it's REALLY dry. Are there any other reasons for this otehr than low humidity, because I'm working to raise it up tonight. I'm just worried, she's off feed, has refused five meals in a row, and now her skin's really dry...

Jenn

[Pixie]

Are you sure it's "dry" skin and not a shed that didn't come off?

One of my BP's has had two really bad sheds where he was only able to get the first inch or two off his face/head and the rest was still pretty firmly stuck to him. Looking at him in that predicament, I can see how someone MAY interpret it to be dry skin as it really looks like it.

That with the refusal of food for the past few feeding attempts sound like it could be the problem.

Give your snake a nice warm bath and see if it's a shed that's stuck.

Good luck and keep us posted,
Pixie

[SerpentLust]

I'll try that today Pixie, however I doubt it's a bad shed. Her last shed was near perfect and it's not so much like her scales are hazy or anything. Some are cracking, and her underside feels flaky and crunchy lol

But I'll try that while I'm also raising humidity :)

Jenn

[Invictus]

Raising the ambient humidity is a waste of time - just put some damp sphagnum moss in the cage for Montey to slither around in. I had this same problem with a female blood that wasn't kept at high enough humidity. I put her on moist sphagnum and two days later her scales were plenty hydrated.

[SerpentLust]

Invictus - I never understood the whole sphagnum moss thing. How do I set that up? Do I just put it in a container moist? Is there a lid on it? Is there a set time that I leave it in? Where can I get it? Etc.

Jenn

[Pixie]

Any news on your snake?

I'm curious to know if it's doing better and why!

Do tell!!! ;)

Pixie

[Zoe]

Jenn, fill an appropriately-sized tub with wet sphagnum moss (well, a couple inches on the bottom), put the lid on it and cut a hole in it for the snake to get through... Replace her favourite hide with this new one and hopefully she'll use it. Or you can just cover her cage with it.

Zoe

[Zoe]

Could it be stomach rot? What do you keep her on? Is it brownish or at all discoloured?
At any rate, you may want to give her a bath in warm, diluted betadine for an hour or two every other day for a couple weeks, and after every bath dry her with a towel and lather some polysporin on the affected areas. If it IS stomach rot, it is imperative that you keep her dry (therefore no soaking sphagnum moss... though damp is good and she'll still need some humidity) and be changing her substrate every day (use papertowel if possible).

Would it be possible to get some pictures of it?

My female had IJ for a while, it was very easy to get rid of as it wasn't serious. And she refused to eat while she had it, too.

Zoe

[SerpentLust]

Zoe - There's no discoloration of any kind. She's on newspaper with reptibark on top. There's no brownish or any other type colors.

Her stomache and now the top of her head and a bit of random scales are just flaky and she has some minor cracking going on.

I'm on the search for the moss at the moment, anyone know where I can get it?

I've just been spraying her cage, and I turned the HOUSE humidity up. Mom's helping me set up the humidifier tomorrow.

Jenn

[marisa]

You can use other things in the humid hide aside from moss, but moss is a fav with most herpers. But anyways you can substitute wet paper towel until you find it, just put wet towels in a container with a hole cut in it until you find moss.

Marisa

[Pixie]

Jenn: From what you describe, it really sounds like a retained shed. I wish I had taken pics of my BP when he had that for you to see and compare.

The best way I can describe it was the tummy had a kind of shrivelled look but it was obviously just the skin surface, almost like if you would have put some egg white and let it dry there. The rest of him had a somewhat greyish hue but not super apparent. It showed mostly between the scales some grey.

When my BP has a retained shed, it becomes really hard to get it off. Takes me a good hour soaking him in a warm bath and working it off. Soak for 10 min. at a time and work as much as I can off, then soak again.

I find starting to get the shed to come off is the hardest part, once you've got it going it gets easier.

Another good trick is to put your snake in a ventilated container with a warm wet towel. Check every hour or so. Some use a wet pillowcase and put the snake in there for a few hours.

What I did is make myself a pillowcase out of an old towel and use that sometimes. It works great!

A humid hide in the winter months is a must when ambient humidity is very low. My snakes that use theirs always have perfect sheds. I just wish they would all use theirs!

Pixie

[SerpentLust]

lol alright Pixie you're damn persistent, I mean whether or not it's a retained shed, some soaking won't do her any harm right? :)

So I'll make her a Humid hide out of paper towel until I find moss. AND I'll soak her and check out the whole shedding thing.

Hopefully that'll take care of her

Jenn

[marisa]

Also sometimes when my snakes have gotten a stuck shed, or I have purchased a snake with a retained shed I have placed them into a very damp pillow case, or a smaller rubbermaid with a warmish wet towel for about an hour or so. This has almost always gotten it off first try, on their own. It helps big time. Good luck!

Marisa

[Invictus]

Jenn - Most pet stores have moss supplied by Exoterra if you're looking for small quantity, as in this case. Or, you could try any gardening store - almost all of them have sphagnum moss. I've even found it in the gardening sections of Home Depot stores. I buy mine from gardening stores, simply because I can get a 3 foot tall packed bag of it for under $40.

[AshleyL]

you can also buy it from craft stores. :)

[SerpentLust]

I finally found sphagnum moss...get this...in our back porch! Apparently mom had bought it because she liked the looks of it for the base of our fake tree. So I have half a bag of it now.

So I bought a tupperware container, put about two inches of it in, made it all moist and then replaced Montey's hide with it. She was hesitant at first, but now she's slithering around in it and not coming out. lol

So hopefully this will do the trick. I'm also raising the Ambiant humidity after she's ok so that I won't encounter this problem again.

Jenn