Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When I got my female a couple months ago I noticed that one eyecap seemed to have wrinkles in it. At her vet checkup we agreed to keep an eye on it and let her go through another shed to see if the eyecap would come off then instead of wrestling with a 2 yr old ball that was stressed anyway and not used to being handled much.

About 3 weeks ago she shed and instead of having one wrinkled eyecap she now has 2. I tried soaking her, putting her in a pillowcase with a warm wet washcloth for a couple hours, mineral oil to loosen it... everything I could think of.

Well today I happened to be messing with some stuff in the herp room and I decided to examine her shed (I keep them all for a while... sometimes my daughter likes to take them to show and tell). You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that she had successfully shed both eyecaps.

So, why are her eyes wrinkled? Is this a sign of dehydration (she seems fine) or of something else I need to be concerned about? I also used mineral oil to try to help her shed what I thought were retained caps. Will the oil be harmful since the caps are the current ones and not bad shed?

Dehydration causes dimples or pitting/wrinkles in BP eyes.
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1.1 Ball Python
0.0.1 corn snake
0.0.1 Bearded Dragon
0.0.2 fish
1.2 cats
3.1 kids
1.0 husband

...dehydration CAN be a cause, but snakes that are properly hydrated can ALSO get wrinkled/cracked eyecaps. Your vet was WISE in waiting for the next shed. Your humidity was probably too low and the result was 2 retained caps. One time a client brought me a BP with a destroyed eye because another vet attempted to remove the "retained" eyecap and he/she actually removed the spectacle itself! In the future make sure your humidity is HIGH in the shed period. Scott J. Michaels DVM

np