Terrible Shed! Help!

[Zoe]

I got my male IJ a while ago, and this is his first shed. It is not going well! While most of it is comming off okay, there are pieces that are stuck, and they feel think and hard, like a plaque of dry skin or something. Also, he's lost a couple of scales, one off his head and one off his back. I've been spraying like mad before the shed (apparently with no affect!) and I've had him in a small rubbermaid lined with a wet towel, with very little luck. What should I do? Just keep him in the warm rubbermaid? Soak him in water? What should I do about the scales that came off?

Thanks!
Zoe

[havenots26]

I would try soaking him for a half hour to an hour in slighty warm water, just make sure it is not too warm! You can then try to gently pull the stuck skin off. Make sure you check the eyecaps and the skin on the tail tip has come off. As far as the scales go if they are an open sore apply some betadine, they should be fine. Unfortunatley they won't grow back, but I had a Dumerils that was missing a couple of scales on her back when I got her and it healed up and you can't even tell they were missing. Hope this helps.

[sSNAKESs.com]

get a pillowcase... soak it in room temperature water, and put him inside and put it on the floor with the end tied of course and let him crawl around in there for 30 minutes. ALot of it should come off..

[Pontus]

if u get relly desperate use sheadeas helped alot one time with my ball

[Phantom]

The same thing happened to me with my bp; he had thick dry peices of skin just hanging from all over his body, eye caps weren't even off ... anyways, it was not a pretty sight!

What I did was put him in a tupperware with just enough warm water to cover his body. I put a rock in the water so that the snake does not drown. The rock gives him something to rest his head on if it gets tired. The rock must obviously be big enough for i to come out over the level of water. I left him there a good 1-2 hours.

When I finally took him out of the water, I used a humid towel to wipe the peices of skin/shed off his body. This technique worked very well for me, the eye caps even came off without too much trouble.

For the missing scales, they *possibly* could come back with the next couple of sheds, depending on how serious the wounds are. Like havenots26 said, you can used betadine if it's an open sore.

Hope this helped, and good luck!!

Phantom

[stormyva]

Everyone has given you great advice here, but do not pull the shed off of him. After soaking let the snake crawl through a warm damp towel or run through your hand. If you pull the shed off it may cause the snake to loose more scales.
On the spots where the scales are already missing..... apply Neopsorin not the pain reliever type) to the wounds until they are "healed" over.

Good luck with it!

[JIMI]

i've had great success pulling shed's off... but only after misting and soaking. using my fingers and fingernails as something to help the shed slide of naturally. rather than it rubbing against a stick or something to get it off

[Linds]

I agree with everyone in that a good long soak with help him. Rememeber that warm to us is *hot* to snakes. Our skin temperature is 100 degrees, so by the time something feels warm to us, it is already too toasty for a snake and you don't want to overheat him. I would let him soak for a few hours and then let him try and rub some off, or if you can gently rub some off with your finger or a soft cloth, but do not force any of it off by pulling. This can further injure your snake. Apply a triple antibiotic ointment to any wounds, if the spots that are missing scales do are not sores, then do not apply ointment. The oil in the ointment will slow down the healing process because the skin cannot breathe, hence you raise the chances of the scales not growing back. But if they are sores you want to make sure they do not get infected. Most importantly you want to make sure there is no retained shed on his tail. If any shed remains it can suffocate the tail which can eventually lead to gangrene, etc. If any of his eye caps are retained, I woudln't worry about trying to remove them. No harm will be done if they are left on to the next shed. Many techniques are too invasive and can cause injury to the eye itself. Just make sure that humidity is up to proper levels so they can come off with the next shed.

[Zoe]

Hi all!

Thanks so much for all the responses but, yeah, he ended up shedding okay except some of his scales are mangled (poor boy). I put some betadine on the little sore where his scale used to be, and it seems to be healing up fine.

Thanks again for all the help!!
Zoe