WTF - HORRIFIC shed!!!

[Lankyrob]

OK - my GTP has shed in one piece everytime bar one (first shed at our house) never had any problems with him at all.

NOTHING in his husbandry has changed, his eyes clouded and we upped teh higher humidity level to 90-95% as we normally do.

We run on a wet/dry cycle for humidity so first thing in the morning and at 7pm we spray to 80-85% humidity and then it dries to 50-55% before the next spray. Once his eyes cloud we spray to 90-95% instead and it dries to 55-60% in between. This cycle has worked absolutely fine for all his sheds so far.

He "shed" last night and it is in about 100 pieces flaking all over the place and some still stuck to his body. His temps have stayed absolutely consistent since his last shed also.

Is it normal for a snake to have a bad shed every now and then with no changes to their environment?

Any thoughts/comments welcomed!!

[Jendee]

It could be nothing temp related, snakes can have bad sheds from stress, any changes goingon at your home that may bother him?? or some other underlining health issue that may not have shown its ugly head yet.

[stephanbakir]

I'd guess stress, hope you find the cause soon:(

[Isaac's Ark]

Hey There Lankyrob,

We here do not currently have any GTP's but I have seen some in the past and have had the pleasure to work with a few during my time as a cage cleaner for other breeders. Not proclaiming to be an expert it the species in any nature of the word. But if it was my animal I would give it a nice warm bath rub it gently with a face cloth for any remaining flakes of shed-ed skin dry hm off well rub some flack seed oil or extra virgin olive oil something pure and oily this is merely to substitute the oily film that is present on snake scales post shed this film hardens and quickly becomes the new first layer of skin. In my experience I have noticed that doing those simple precautions after a bad shed and then fallowing threw with the proper husbandry care as you stated perhaps a conscious effort to spray a touch more during shedding time (Not Implying that you don't do these things lol) And perhaps adding a humid hide in a permanent location in the enclosure. These are realy the only things I would try this early in the game and as always observation and record keeping will be key in the event a vet call is in order.

Good Luck bud

PS. To answer your question yes some times it just happens the above is just how I deal with these kind of skin issues.

[Damion930]

Somtimes my retic will bask under his light more often during shed and I belive this leads to him somtimes not having the best of sheds I have sence started spraying him down when I find him under the light and his sheds have improved

[Lankyrob]

He is totally clear of the shed now - damp facecloth and a good excuse to get him out for cuddles :)

We have also found the issue - stupid tho it is!! A piece of substrate had gotten into the door runner - the doors are 3foot tall glass so pretty large in terms of viavrium height - and even tho the doors were closed and no risk of snakey escaping the piece of substrate was leaving a slight gap at the edge of the door. This obviously increases airflow and reduces humidity = bad shed!! We tend to check the humidity when we spray and it was getting up to 85% with no issue and the lowest it was getting was 55% which is its normal low end. The problem was it was drying out much quicker than it should.

When i found the "fault" i did a test to check, normally it takes 10 hours to drop from 85% to 50% which is when we respray - with the door gap it took 1.5 hours!! So for 8 hours each day and each night his humidity was too low.

Guess we got complacent once the system we use was working for a period of months with no issues - we WILL be checking it more often now!!!

[stephanbakir]

I was starting to doubt that it was stress related, especially since you handle your GTP as little as possible:P

[Damion930]

Glad to hear you found out what was up

[McSlo2.0]

good to see all wound up going well, and good that you found the culprit. Post shed pics?

[Lankyrob]

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/morelia-viridis/85909-profile-hogan.html

[shaunyboy]

i have a male irian jaya carpet that sheds perfect everytime except for twice,where it shed in pieces with at least 3 quarters of the shed retained.

i had to bath him on both random occasions when it happened

nothing changed in his enviroment

i have no idea why it happens mate

cheers shaun