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Strange shed? Extra head?

M

majora

New member
So Calcifer just had his first shed with me... everything was pretty normal, as far as I know - turned blue, turned clear two days later, and two days after that (this morning) I woke up to find his shed skin in the tank. I have a few questions though...

First, I didn't find his head on the shed. It just kind of ends abruptly where the head would be. I dug through the aspen and I didn't find the head part anywhere, but I checked Cal out and he doesn't appear to have any retained shed on his head (from what I can see anyway - is it usually obvious?) Here's a picture of the full shed:

downsized_0816121359.jpg


Which brings me to my next question, the one I'm really curious about... see that thing sticking out near the middle of the shed? It's a very small head shed with about 2" of neck/body trailing off of it, wrapped around and stuck to the bigger shed. I'm completely stumped... it's WAY too small to be Cal's head, it's the size of a hatchling's, and Cal is a yearling. I only have one snake... Cal is absolutely normal in every way... so WHERE did this little extra head come from?? Here's a picture, but it was hard to get a good shot of it.

downsized_0816121401.jpg


I'm so confused... at first I thought it was Calcifer's head, somehow stuck to the middle of the body, but it's so much smaller than his. It's so weird. I'm new to snakes, so if you have any thoughts... please help!
 
Are there eye caps on it? I am guessing that it is the half with his lower jaw and the top of the head is still somewhere in his tank.
 
It's got eye caps on it. I dug around in the tank again and still couldn't find anything else. I'm so confused!
 
Shed skin is not an accurate reflection of size. Its likely the head piece just shrunk up a little bit as it was sloughed off. You can't really accurately judge a snakes size by its sheded skin size.
 
mattsnake said:
Shed skin is not an accurate reflection of size. Its likely the head piece just shrunk up a little bit as it was sloughed off. You can't really accurately judge a snakes size by its sheded skin size.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that info. Like I said I'm new to snakes, so this is the first time I've had one shed for me. It just confused me because the rest of it is "normal" sized and the head piece is so tiny.
 
Ocasionally a snake will crawl back through its own shed to aid in removing eye caps,or other retained skin. I can't see the photo very well but would assume that is the head/eye caps. My whiteside speck does this often and when he has trouble with the eye caps (once in a while) I actually use his shed skin and lightly rub it over the eye caps to help remove them.

Steve
 
SteveP said:
Ocasionally a snake will crawl back through its own shed to aid in removing eye caps,or other retained skin. I can't see the photo very well but would assume that is the head/eye caps. My whiteside speck does this often and when he has trouble with the eye caps (once in a while) I actually use his shed skin and lightly rub it over the eye caps to help remove them.

Steve
Click to expand...

Wow, I didn't know that. Does that indicate that something's wrong, since he didn't shed all in one piece? If it means he had a little trouble with his shed, should I add a humid hide next time he sheds?
 
That I cannot tell you with certainty. I'm not nearly experienced enough. My king is just flat out a problem shedder. Has been since I got him. I've played with his heat and humidity and he still fights me every time almost. Used the moist moss trick, ocasionally still keeps one or both eye coverlets. Just the way he is. If your snake shed completely in 2 pieces I wouldn't worry too much but that's me.

Oh and there is a video on youtube of a baby milk snake crawling back through its shed to remove its coverlets. I found all this while trying to figure out how to get coverlets off of my king.

Steve
 
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