Shedding IJ

[Zoe]

My female with stomach rot is finally going into shed. Because I've been keeping her pretty dry, she is shedding in pieces (her head is already off with the eyecaps though,so thats good), but should I soak her? Mist her down? Keep her dry and let her shed over a few days?

Thanks
Zoe

[ThEmAdHaTtEr]

You're more expert than me, but when My BPs shed and I notice, I spray the cage down. It works fine n dandy. If she doesnt get everything off, soak her.

[Tim and Julie B]

Well, I have known many who use polysporin to give relief to a poorly shedding snake. It will make it more comfortable and you could try to help it shed once the polysporin has softened the dead skin. I can see why you would not want to spray it, with the belly rot and all.

[JKUROSKI]

Well I would have sprayed it to allow a proper shed, belly rot or not. The main goal was to get the nasty old skin off. I think you just compounded the problem. Get that skin off if you can, but I don't recommend putting large quantities of polysporin all over the snake. It will also soften the new scales underneigh and you will have single scale sheds all over after this one comes off. I put some on a minor head rub last year and her head is just now looking better and shedding with the rest of the body. The good scale near the wound site would pop off and where discolored.

[vanderkm]

Just a suggestion - it may be worth doing a short term (30 minute to 1 hour) confinement in a covered tub with a warm, damp towel to help get all the retained shed off quite quickly and then be able to get her back to a normal environment as soon as possible. I can't say this is a good idea following scale rot because I haven't dealt with that, but it has helped us with retained eye caps and a couple bad sheds in the past. As long as the tub is kept warm, we just let them crawl between layers of the towel when we take them out of the tub, and they don't usually hate it too much and it does get the retained shed off quickly.


mary v.

[JIMI]

my ij female's last shed came in pieces with some retaining along her back... I held her, placed my thumb firmly over a partly peeled piece and slowly but firmly work my thumb down the body in the direction they would normally shed. You may find that they will help out, "crawling" through your fingers and sluffing it themselves using your fingers like they would a tree branch or rock sorta. works every time and is of no stress to the snake from what I can tell.

[Zoe]

I've decided to put her on a wet towel for a while. She's shedding in little pieces and she's all crackly when I hold her. Some came off her stomach - the new scales are a little wrinkled but at least the brown crusties are gones. Hopefully after the next shed she'll be good as new.

On a more positive notes, my male IJ took a big, fat gerbil. Took him forever to eat it, I don't think he knew quite what was. He kept it down, though, and got to see some cool mouth anatomy when I was holding his head.

I have another live gerbil that i'm going to try on this female when she's done shedding. *crosses fingers*

Zoe

[AnthonyC]

Zoe,

I'd soak her for 30 minutes or so if you can...that's usually the best way to get stuck shed off.

BTW, Will your carpets take f/t mice? If so, I have a method of switching them to rats that will probably work for you.

[Zoe]

Yes they will take mice... if your idea works, i'll love you forever!!!

Zoe

[AnthonyC]

Originally posted by Zoe
Yes they will take mice... if your idea works, i'll love you forever!!!

Zoe

Zoe,

This has worked for my 2 year old female and Jim Kuroski's 5+ year old female IJ (he sent her to me about 6 weeks ago). In both cases, the animals were extremely stubborn about eating rats until I tried this. It took about 6-8 weeks with both animals.

This took a lot of typing, so please promise me that you'll try this.

It sounds really complicated, but once you understand it, it's really a simple concept. Basically, here's the idea...

- Start feeding them mice that have been scented with a slight rat smell, by thawing mice and rats in the same hot water.

- Keep the snake more hungry than if it were fasting (I'll explain)

- Scent the rats with a strong mouse smell, by actually rubbing the rat down with a mouse's butt.

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Here you go...

1. Start thawing frozen rats and mice out in the same container of hot water. (If none of your snakes take rats, just refreeze the rats for later use) Start offering them the f/t mice that have been thawed in hot water, along with rats. My theory here is that the mouse will have a little bit of a rat smell on them. This gets them used to the rat smell...a little bit. By doing this, you are basically scenting the mice with rat smell, which I think is an important part of the transition.

2. Keep the snake hungry! You know how after not eating for a long time, you get to the point where you aren't even hungry any longer? We want to avoid this with the snake, so feed it just one of those f/t mice (with rat smell) every 14 days, but don't make the snake fast. I firmly believe that feeding them a relatively small meal (one mouse) every couple of weeks keeps their metabolism going so that they are still hungry, yet never full.

You will notice that they will act very hungry on this regimen. With Jim's 5+ year old female, she was constantly poking her head out of her hide box, hoping for food...even after she'd get a mouse.

3. Once the snake is readily accepting those f/t mice that have been thawed in the same water as rats, you can start trying the rats. It could take a week, or it could take a few weeks to get them used to the smell of these f/t mice that have been thawed with rats...but it's an important part of the battle, IMHO.

4. Once the snake is taking those mice mentioned above, you cn start trying rats. To scent the rats with "mouse scent," you will want to rub the mouse's rear (still wet from thawing) end all over the rat...especially it's face. Sounds romantic huh?

5. Offering rats...

Proceed to offer the "mouse scented" rat to the snake. The snake may or may not strike and constrict the rat.

a. If it won't hit the rat, keep trying this every time you feed it, until it does strike and constict. I would usually try this every week, but would only "give in" and give them a mouse every other week.

b. If and when the snake does start to strike and constrict these scented rats, it will probably just spit the rat out...at least the first few times, but eventually, the snake should figure out that the rat is food too, and will eat it. If it spits the rat out, just try again next week...and just like above, try this every week, but only give them a mouse every other week.

From here on, you can start trying to switch the snake to unscented rats, which is usually an easy transition.

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Let me know if this is tough to understand...it's an easy concept, but tough to put into words.

-Anthony

[Lisa]

Hmm we thaw mice and rats together, wonder if this is why we haven't had many problems switching them.

[JIMI]

What about rat pups? they're small but you can feed them live. most I've seen find the movement of prey an irresistable item when they've spent so much time eating thawed motionless ones.