Retained shed at tail.

[Nafun]

My jungle, Berber, shed today, but she retained about 3 inches of shed at her tail. What can I do to help her shed this? I gave her a ~20 minute soak in her tub, but when I took the lid off to take a temperature reading of the water she made it abundantly clear that she was done swimming for the day.
Water was ~87-84 degrees.

I know she's hungry, I've got her rat thawing on top of her enclosure, and she can tell it's there, and wants it. Should I feed her or wait until she, or I, can get the rest of that skin off.

[dragunov.762]

i just had the same problem with my BCI yesterday. i took a wet paper towel and GENTLY rubbed her tail with it and it came right off in about 5 min or less

[emseeKAY]

you could always put her in a dampened pillow case and let her chill out in there for a couple hours

[marvelfreak]

If left on it could cause tail rot. It could cut off the flow of blood to the tail. Making it slowly die off. I try what dragunov.762 said if that don't work, then do the pillowcase thing emseeKay suggested. It works really good.

[Nafun]

I'm going to try giving her another soak to make sure it's good and soft and then try dragunov's suggestion. She's still young though, this is her first shed with me and she really really doesn't like being handled.

[Nafun]

The paper towel didn't work, I tried a hand towel, since it's a little rougher and let her slither through it, no love. Put her back in her enclosure, going to see if she gets it off in the next couple of hours, or if she settles down in her humid hide. If she doesn't do either, I'll put her in a damp pillowcase.

[Nafun]

She got it off, just found it stuck to the side of her enclosure. Now she gets the rat she's been eying all day.

[emseeKAY]

lol good stuff sounds like it was a task to get that thing off lol

[Nafun]

She's still got a band of retained shed on her around her vent that I didn't see. I moved the fogger to her enclosure, and she's been sleeping in the humid hide all night. I'll give her a soak today, and hopefully it'll come off.

[shaunyboy]

i usually use my fingers to take any retained shed of a tail mate.my way of thinking is if its not giving you too much resistence when your doing it then its ok.its much better than the blood being restricted to the tip of the tail and it dieing and dropping off.it feels like when you peel a piece of cellatape of a piece of card.be very carefull when your doing it.all the time watching how the scales are reacting to you puliing the retained shed.everytime ive had to do it its worked fine.you dont want to put too much pressure on the scales.they will lift up a tiny bit then as the sheds coming off they will imediately pop right back to how they should be.sorry mate its really hard to explain in words and so much easier to demonstrate.
cheers shaun

ky jelly is also a great method if the retained shed is too firmly attatched to use your fingers.you just put a few blobs on the affected area put the snake in a tub with just papertowels or imo in the tub with nothing.papertowels tend to absorb the jelly off the tail.you can repeat the jelly as often as you need as its just a water based moisturising jelly.

[Nafun]

She's had the fogger for 2 days now, and she's been getting daily warm water baths (which she hates). It still hasn't budged. Going to get some ky jelly and try that tonight instead of a bath.

[shaunyboy]

you can give it a gentle scrape with your finger nail mate.then when you get an edge grip it and peel.just use a bit common sense as to if its coming off ok or its really welded on there.got any pictures mate.i always peel from head back towards the end of the tail.thats the direction it would come off if the snake did it by itself.
cheers shaun

[Nafun]

I've tried scraping with my finger nail, there's no edge. I managed to get *one* scale of shed off yesterday. I'll try to get a picture but it's a very small area.

[shaunyboy]

how you getting on with the retained shed mate ???

[Nafun]

She appears to have finally gotten it off herself.

[Nafun]

I checked her again, right after posting that, and noticed she now had a "rough" patch on her side where she hadn't shed, but the color had gone back to normal. It felt very very dry, like a scab. (usually she feels kind of like soft leather) So it was off to the vet today.

Her retained shed is being caused or is causing an infection under one of her scales. Now I get to give her injections every other day (she's going to love that) for a week, and then soak her. If the shed doesn't come off, back to the vet she goes.

[shaunyboy]

not being cheeky mate but get someone to help you hold your jungle firmly while you give the injection.never go through a scale go under them.always give the injection site a quick clean with a cloth and some soapy water.also give the site a gentle rub after the injection.personally i hate giving mine injections it feels so invasive,sticking sharp objects into my snakes.has to be done though,good luck with the patient mate.
cheers shaun

[Nafun]

Yeah, the vet showed me how to do it, and my wife (reluctantly) agreed to help.

[shaunyboy]

Yeah, the vet showed me how to do it, and my wife (reluctantly) agreed to help.


thats how my wife started years ago mate.as my medical assistant,ha,ha.now she wants her own garter project.i take my hat off to your wife for being game enough to help with matters she's not too comfy with.you got a good wife there mate.hope the treatment goes well.
cheers shaun

[Nafun]

My wife already caught the bug. She came in to wake me up from my nap... holding Houdini. The snake I can't hold without it escaping. It's escaped 6 times on me, and she just holds him like it's nothing. He never musks her, or tries to get away.