dry scales

[JimmyDavid]

My big burm took too long to shed this last time, so i increased humidity. Still took quite some extra time more than i expected.
Now i noticed that her scales came out too dry. should i worry?
Maybe i shouldn't have increased humidity at all, i don't know...
What do you guys think?

[KarlSnake]

A "dry scale" shed is usually due to premature removal of the old skin - it just wasn't quite ready to come off yet, even though it was the occupant that removed it & it seems to us that the sloughing process took an unusually long time. Other than the cosmetics of dull frosty-looking & somewhat wrinkly scales, this isn't a pathological problem. Unless you can get the humidity up to the point that it is raining inside the enclosure, it isn't going to make much, if any, difference. A good long preshed soak is necessary, however. A big snake needs a fairly large place to soak & its gotta be warm enough for the snake to want to stay in it for quite a while - a week or more. I have a 400 gallon galvanized livestock water tank set into the floor of Little Snooky's cage with a waterbed heater underneath the bottom & set the thermostat to 80º F when his eyes milk over. He'll pretty much stay in there for a week or so, then crawl out & scrape himself on his (broken) cinderblocks "furniture" until he's got the old skin sloughed off. Then it's ShopVac time to Hoover up the debris. He hasn't had any "dry" spots from a shed since I installed the waterbed heater like maybe 15 years ago. I usta reset the thermostat for his heatlamps at the other end of his cage, but it didn't seem to make any difference to him, so I just leave 'em @ 95 ºF year-round. I do turn off the waterbed heater underneath his water tank when he isn't shedding. The only part he has any trouble shedding is the scales in his nostrils & I just gently pick 'em out/off with a mousetooth forceps - a procedure which he does NOT like.

Dry / rough / frosty scales will normally resolve on the next shed.

[JimmyDavid]

Thanks. The dry effect is passing, anyway.
But thanks.