Albino Sand Boa still not eating. AARGH

[Journeyman]

Thank you CK, Formica, MizCandice, and Wrecker for reading my posts and the feedback. I've followed advice that seemed to be substantiated by other members/research and may still act on more of the advice in the near future (ie: thermostatically controlled heat mat and light; thermostat probe under heat lamp; live mice; weighing with digital scale). here is an update:

11/14 Wrapped all 4 walls with black paper to block about 95% of all ambient light.
11/15 removed white incandescent bulb. replaced with red bulb. Bulb is on about 12 hours/day. off at night. temp varies from 80 on cool side to 100 on hot side. He seems to prefer the middle of tank or cooler side of tank.
11/17 Concerned that his shedding has progressed. placed his whole body in warm water about 1/2" deep. he stayed in it for about 3 minutes. May have been swallowing it. Do they actually drink water? I guess I've never seen them do that in pictures or on tv so it seems odd. I"m waiting for the shedding to stop before attempting another feeding. We've limited our digging him up to about every other day just to look at him and see if he is still alive. He moves very slowly the few times I've picked him up. He moves a little faster after I've held him for a minute. I took the picks of his wrinkles/shedding, put him in the water bowl, and put him back in tank. he crawled back under the bedding.

Thanks for reading. DOES HIS SHEDDING PICTURE SEEM NORMAL/ACCEPTABLE (he started peeling about 6 days ago)?

[CK SandBoas]

Originally Posted by Journeyman

Thank you CK, Formica, MizCandice, and Wrecker for reading my posts and the feedback. I've followed advice that seemed to be substantiated by other members/research and may still act on more of the advice in the near future (ie: thermostatically controlled heat mat and light; thermostat probe under heat lamp; live mice; weighing with digital scale). here is an update:

11/14 Wrapped all 4 walls with black paper to block about 95% of all ambient light.
11/15 removed white incandescent bulb. replaced with red bulb. Bulb is on about 12 hours/day. off at night. temp varies from 80 on cool side to 100 on hot side. He seems to prefer the middle of tank or cooler side of tank.
11/17 Concerned that his shedding has progressed. placed his whole body in warm water about 1/2" deep. he stayed in it for about 3 minutes. May have been swallowing it. Do they actually drink water? I guess I've never seen them do that in pictures or on tv so it seems odd. I"m waiting for the shedding to stop before attempting another feeding. We've limited our digging him up to about every other day just to look at him and see if he is still alive. He moves very slowly the few times I've picked him up. He moves a little faster after I've held him for a minute. I took the picks of his wrinkles/shedding, put him in the water bowl, and put him back in tank. he crawled back under the bedding.

Thanks for reading. DOES HIS SHEDDING PICTURE SEEM NORMAL/ACCEPTABLE (he started peeling about 6 days ago)?

He definitely should have finished shedding by now. you are going to want to either place him in a deli cup with either damp paper towels or damp spaghnum moss, and leave him in it, or maybe it's even better to assist the shed off with a wet q-tip. You are going to want to get that shed off sooner rather than later, considering the amount of time it's been. If you use the q-tip method, make sure you have a bowl of warm water as well, to keep wetting the q-tip with. Gently rub off the shed with the q-tip, working from the head, down to the tail. Make sure you also work around the body, meaning go around the diameter of the body as you help the shed come off.