bad stuff

[marylyn101]

My cal king coastel phase has been in a shed for like 2 weeks. she hardly comes out and seems so mad. is she alright. is there anything i can do. is death a possibilty?

[ReptiZone]

check your temps in the shad all the time it might want to cool down and if heated it may be a bit more snapy and nervouse

[jwsporty]

Marylyn101,

Do you have her in a humidity hide? two weeks is a ong time for a shed. You could use expandable forest bark, over her hot side of the tank. This is great stuff as it does smell like Spaghnum Moss holds water nicely and can stay in the tank after the shed. If you buy a brick of this stuff, just break of a piece, throw it into a bucket of water and let it expand, and it will EXPAND a lot so be sparing. Once expanded, simply grab handfuls and lightly squeeze out the extra water and then put it into the tank. I am using a depth of about 4 inches in all my tanks. When it dries out I simply put in a couple glasses of water and then stir it up again. My Honduran "Gandalf" had a tough go with his first shed with us. , the whole tank was substrated with Aspen at the time. All I did was dish out a hole for him to lie in under his cork bark hide. His most recent shed only took 5 days from hazing to release. I still use the aspen on the cool side and it appears that all my snake will defecate on the cool side (Aspen side) and not on the Hot side. So re-using is not a problem. This batch has been in the tanks now for 6 weeks and I have re-wetted 3 times on every tank. No problems. Humidty levels were hovering around 55-60%. When the humidity drops to around 30-35%, I wet out again

The bulk brick of expandable forest bark sells for around $30-35.00 CDN and you will get a lot of coverage out of one of these bricks. I was able to do 6 - 10 gal tanks, 3 - 33 gal tanks, 3 - 20 gal tanks, and 2 - 25 gal tanks and that is not including the piece I still have left over..

His cool side hide is a dog water dish and he uses both hides equally.

My tank temps for my kings is average Cool Side 68-71/Hot Side 84-88

Another thing you could try if your girl will accept it, is put a warm wet towel in a box, and then put the snake between the layers. My pueblan had a real lousy shed back in January, I did this and left him in the box for two hours. Next day all the pieces were off. I am now doing the forest bark/aspen split on his tank as well and no further problems.

Note: if you are going to use this setup, try and leave a space in the tank where there is no substrate between the aspen and the bark, so that the moisture from the expanadable bark doesn't leach into the aspen. you could end up with a mold problem if the aspen gets wet. Works for me..

Good luck, I hope this helps

Jim

[Vanan]

Calikings shouldn't need a humidity hide, unless you're in the middle of the desert or the snake's unhealthy. A bad shed, even with water available to drink from would be a concern IMO. Watch her closely and monitor anything which happens. Don't hesitate to bring her to a qualified herp vet.

Another reason she may not be shedding off may be the absence of branches or rocks to help with the shedding process. Place some cage furniture in too.

[jwsporty]

I would agree Vanan, a hide, persay is not necessary, but increasing the humidity does help. Hence the use of the expandable bark. I have not a bad shed since going to the two zone substrate setup. Even though the two examples were milk snakes, I have found all my snakes shed quicker using this method, and not a single one has skin problems. You are absolutely right, cage furniture should be there as well. I agree if all else fails, Get to the Vet!

[Emily-Fisher]

Well vanan and jwsporty seem to have it done perfectly so...I might as well just leave :P My corn hasn't shed for 3 weeks!

[marylyn101]

thanks

[Will]

Just to add my $0.02.

My Cali has a regular cycle of 2 days 'blue', 2 days clear and then shed. So a 5 day cycle is the norm for me.

Every species is different, but a deviation that large may make me concerned. It might just be too dry. If that's the case, do like Vanam says.