Hi all!

I was hoping to get some advice regarding my roughly 10 month old Dumeril. I've had him since Sept. and this is the first time I'm having problems with him.

Here's the situation:

The first of January Everett (the Dumeril) had a REALLY REALLY bad shed. On top of that, he looked as if someone had deflated him - his skin became very wrinkled and loose looking. He sort of looked like the majority of snakes you see in pet stores (bad shed, wrinkly dehydrated looking skin, etc.) I'd noticed he'd been hugging his hot side (burrowing under the aspen AND paper towels) for days on end and wondered if he dehydrated himself. I gave him several baths for the next couple of weeks and that took care of the bad shed but not the wrinkled, slack skin. On top of that, I think he still has one "spectacle." Since this happened, he has stopped eating regularly and at one point I heard him making quite a few "sneezy" noises but haven't really noticed any other signs of a respiratory infection.

Here's his setup:

Glass tank 36x12x13 with a heating pad under one side. I've taped a washcloth over the hot side so the snake can never burn himself and have a few layers of paper towels under the aspen to help make cleaning easier. Aspen, large water bowl, several hides. Two digital temp/humidity probes. Cool side ranging from 60-70 F and 50-60% humidity. Hot side roughly 83-85 F. (I used to keep the hot side around 89-91 but since he seemed to be baking himself, I've turned it down)

If anyone has ANY ideas or has ever experienced this, please provide me some sort of feedback. I've never had this kind of problem with my snakes (corn, ball, and of course, dumeril) and I don't know what to do.

Thank you all for your time.

Melinda

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