Posted by:
jfmoore
at Mon Aug 25 17:07:30 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by jfmoore ]
One of the reasons that snakes seclude themselves during the end of the shed process (or the beginning of going opaque, which is when this cycle first becomes obvious to us) is that they are very vulnerable during this period. It is not just that their eyes are cloudy for part of this time and they cannot see as well, as is so often stated. The fresh skin underneath the old skin is not ready to be exposed; it is still developing, and handling the animal during this time can easily cause trauma. Even after the eyes clear, but before the snake has shed, it is still possible to injure the new epidermis by rough handling. In this case, moving a 10 foot python from its cage to a bathtub and back while it is “deep in shed” as you stated, can qualify as rough handling, even though I’m sure you tried to be gentle. It will almost surely cause the sort of friction between the old and new skin surfaces which can result in injury.
With smaller animals which you can scoop up and hold comfortably and loosely in your two hands, it is certainly possible to safely manipulate them while they are opaque if you really must (say, to transfer them to another container if you have to clean their cages).
If these large snakes had cages roomy enough to include a pool which they could choose to enter on their own, that would be great. Barring that, the safest way we can facilitate ecdysis is to add moisture to the cages at appropriate times. I’m not trying to diagnose long distance the specific problem you posted about. And I am definitely not trying to attack you. I am simply addressing the practice of putting very large snakes in bathtubs as a shedding aid which I constantly see put forth as a good husbandry practice on these forums. In our low humidity housing, I think we so often see dried, adhered sheds that we too zealously go to the opposite end of the husbandry spectrum without realizing that we may unintentionally do damage to the largest organ of the snake’s body – its skin.
-Joan
P.S. I speak from personal experience on this issue.
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Big snakes in bathtubs - jfmoore, Mon Aug 25 17:07:30 2003