RCReptiles.com

[lngviewbplover]

It seems quite often we see "My snake had a bad shed, what went wrong?" or "My snake had a bad shed, how do I fix it?' Here's a few tips I hope will help and answer those questions.

I'm sure at some point or another, when our snakes shed, something has happened that caused it to not have the perfect shed. Lets look at the meaning of a perfect shed first. When your snake sheds its old skin completely, with no missing pieces, eye caps are on the old skin and nothing is left on the snake at all. It is exciting to have your snake do this.
Now lets look at the different "versions" of a bad shed.
Your snake sheds and there are a few small pieces left on. While this isn't to terribly bad is is pretty easy to fix. Take a damp wash clothe and wet the left over skin for a few minutes then lightly rub the left over skin off. Make sure to rub from head to tail direction. You don't want to accidently rub off a new scale rubbing the wrong way.

The next version is alot worse, there are several patches of left over skin and they cover alot of the snakes body. When this happens there is just too much area to try and cover with a damp wash clothe. To fix this problem get a plastic tub or and old tank your not using anymore and fill it with enough water to cover about 2/3's of your snakes body. Make sure the water isn't too cold or too hot. I find just above luke warm or luke warm water works for me.If your using and old tank and it still has the UTH attached plug it in to help warm the water. Just becareful the tank doesn't leak, you don't want to shock your snake while its having a soak.
Make sure to put in a bowl or a small half log for your snake to rest its head on in the water. Put your snake in and cover the top so it doesn't get out, and let it soak for about 20 to 30 minutes. Once the soaking is done, take a damp clothe and begin the rubbing proccess of removing the old skin. I find that a wet thumb works well too by applying enough pressure to rub the old skin off from the head to the tail direction.
If your not comfortable enough doing this there is also the pillow case method, after soaking your snake put it in a pillow case for a cpl of hours, and from it moving around inside it will take the old skin off.
Another method is to take olive oil and apply it to the affected areas of left on skin, and it will help aide in the removal of the old skin.

Removal of retained eye caps.
This is by far the most difficult thing to do. Sometimes a snake will shed but still have its eyecaps. There are 2 methods that I know of to removing left over eye caps.First is to take a wet towel and try to soak your snakes head in it for about 15 minutes or so. This is going to be hard to do as most snakes don't like their head messed with. Once the soaking is done take a wet Qtip and VERY gently try to remove the eyecaps. Take great care as to not damage the outer lense on your snakes eyes. The other method is to use a piece of masking tape, once soaking is done apply the tape over the eyecap and remove, the retained eyecap should come off. Again be VERY careful as too much pressure on the tape could pull the outer lense on your snakes eyes out. If your not comfortable in doing this 2 other options are take your snake to a Qualified herp vet and have him do it, or you can wait for the snakes next shed and they should come off then. If you choose to wait for the next shed and the eye caps have still not come off then take it to the vet. Retained eye caps can cause infections in your snakes eye.

Remember to watch your temps and humidity. When my snakes go into shed I make sure I bump the humidity level to above 70% by misting the tanks to help aide in the shed process. I hope this helps anyone who might ask those questions.

[deborahbroadus]

Great post! I made it a sticky, thanks for the contribution.

[lngviewbplover]

I forgot to add, if anyone has another method of removing of old skin, add to this thread.