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only shed half-way - what should i do?

M

mazzy

New member
hi,

i'm about to look through the forums for similar posts, but i need to deal with this asap. my 6 mo old corn snake only shed half-way tonight. i noticed the humidity was low in her tank when she started shedding so i put some wet paper towels in a cup in there. she shed half-way, including eyecaps, but has yet to shed the lower half and tail. i tried to pick her up but she's way too squirmy and seems really stressed. i put some fresh damp paper towels in the cage and tried to hold them against her so that she rubbed on them as she moved. the shedding doesn't seem to be starting up again. any suggestions?

thank you!
 
okay, i searched and found some good suggestions. i'm sorry for cluttering up the board - i was panicking. hopefully something will work. :)
 
hmm, here's a question i don't see answered - if i can't get her to shed all of the way tonight, how long can this wait? does it have to happen now, or would it be best for her to hang with the wet paper towels overnight and hopefully remoisturize?
 
It seems less stressful to just give them a shed box or a moist hide when they need it. When I am going down a row of babies to feed (I put each one in a deli cup with a pink), if I see one that looks like it needs help shedding, I just grab a handful of its aspen bedding, dump a little water from its waterbowl into the deli, and lock the baby in the cup until morning. Virtually always the shed is complete by then. That's about as easy as it gets.
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I put a handful of aspen in the cup, then add enough water so that even once the shavings are completely soaked, you can still see some water in the bottom of the deli cup (not enough that the corn could easily drink from it, but you can see some water). But the snake is sitting on soggy shavings, not sloshing around in water. Basically, a slimy mess, lol! But it is only for overnight.
__________________
Kathy Love
Cornutopia.com
[email protected]
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This is from Kathy Love on a previous thread
Hope this helps!

Daniel
 
thanks for the tip! i use paper towels for substrate so i don't have any aspen. right now i have a bunch of damp paper towels on one side of the tank. i'll leave that overnight and see what it looks like in the morning.
 
I never use the wet towels method, but spray the water in with a mister. It helps dispersing it and goes into the air directly. I do this when the shed starts. never had a problem with shedding.

Acradon
 
Wet towels should work too.

I always wondered if a baby might actually get stuck in a wet mess of paper towels and could even possibly drown if the fibers were totally saturated with water. But I have never heard of it happening. I like to use moss or aspen so that can never happen.

If it had stuck skin on it for days (or probably even weeks), I think it would be uncomfortable, but probably not dangerous. I only open my baby cages twice a week, so I seldom catch them on the first day of a shedding problem, although those problems are rare here in Florida.
 
Whenever I have a partial or stuck shed (I have a few individuals that just can't seem to get a good shed)...I put the snake in a deli with wet paper towels...fold the towels wet them GOOD...enough that they won't hold any more and place them in the bottom of the deli...I sometimes even cover the snake with DAMP paper towels as well...never had a drowning issue...but I will usually only leave them in there for 30mins to and hour...if the shed hasn't come off by then...I leave them in for another 30min to and hour...rarely will it take any more than that...although I have left them in with DAMP (not SOAKED) paper towels overnight with no problems...

The breathing/drowning idea HAS occurred to me...but after having watched this behavior multiple times...they will find their way to the surface if they are uncomfortable in the layers of paper towel.
 
Yes, if drowning were a likely possibility, I am sure I would have heard of it...

happening to somebody before. But weird things occur occasionally. If I tell somebody not to worry about it, then sure enough it will happen! Murphy's Law, I guess.
 
kathylove said:
happening to somebody before. But weird things occur occasionally. If I tell somebody not to worry about it, then sure enough it will happen! Murphy's Law, I guess.
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As soon as I wrote my post...I regretted using the word "WILL" instead of "SHOULD" when saying they come to the top...

My luck seems to be just like yours... :spinner:

In my experience it works, but usually they are at least PARTIALLY supervised and not left for long periods...although the aspen trick sounds MUCH easier...especially when dealing with a large quantity of hatchlings...
 
I have had great success using sphagnum moss, and I think it's more "enjoyable" for the snake. They seem to love getting lost in the stuff. Some have told me that moss was harmful but I can find no substantial proof and have had no problems.

Mike B
 
mbdorfer said:
I have had great success using sphagnum moss, and I think it's more "enjoyable" for the snake. They seem to love getting lost in the stuff. Some have told me that moss was harmful but I can find no substantial proof and have had no problems.

Mike B
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Mike,

How long do you keep the moss in the viv? I heard that it can get moldy? I was thinking about using it with one of my problem shedders.
 
Generally, I use a "tupperware" type container filled with the moss. I mist it pretty good put a lid on it with an acess hole in the lid. The snake will almost always enter on his own, but occasionally I will put the snake in myself. Usually a few hours is all I leave it in there, but sometimes I have gone overnight with it. I find pieces of the shed skin in the moss and the snake is usually clean. I have never had a mold problem. Years ago, before I knew anything about stress in snakes, I used to do the same thing but I used a pillowcase full of moss and misted it with a product called "Shed-Aid". I don't think they make this anymore and plain water seems to work fine. Hope this helped

Mike B
 
kathylove said:
I always wondered if a baby might actually get stuck in a wet mess of paper towels and could even possibly drown if the fibers were totally saturated with water. But I have never heard of it happening. I like to use moss or aspen so that can never happen.
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my snake is actually about 9 months, not 6. i accidentally calculated back from the time i bought her, not how old she was then. i'm not worried about drowning - the paper towels were only damp and she was able to move through and around them. i guess it *could* happen, though.

If it had stuck skin on it for days (or probably even weeks), I think it would be uncomfortable, but probably not dangerous. I only open my baby cages twice a week, so I seldom catch them on the first day of a shedding problem, although those problems are rare here in Florida.
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that was my biggest concern - i wanted to make sure i wasn't doing anything horrible by not being able to deal with this before work this morning. when i get home i'll see how she's doing, and if she hasn't completed the shed i'll try the other methods people have mentioned.

thank you everybody for your help! i feel much more calm and capable of dealing with this situation. :) (and now i know to bump the humidity up during shed times in winter months.)
 
you should have done it right away, the same thing happend to my Annabella about a month ago, she started to shed, got it past the first inch on her neck then couldn't get it down anyfarther, I left her for the night and the next day I had to bath her and pull the shed off myself took me two hours, I tried everything for two weeks befor a humihide, misttng the substaite literly everyhting I read about on here, and it still didn't work, anyways after I got it off she aperently had the skin on for too long casue it cut off the curculation to her tail and the last little few mm died.
 
i came home after work to find that my snake had finished shedding. the leftover half came off in two pieces, but the tip of the tail shed and there aren't any leftover scales or flakes. thanks for all of the advice - it'll come in handy when i need to work with the humidity to prevent this from happening next time. :)
 
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