One of my snakes still has a retained eye cap. What steps can I take to ensure the safety of the snake and take off the retained eye cap. Thank for any input.
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Retained Eye Cap question!
LRivera33
Aug 13, 2007 08:25 PM
Replies (4)
BSleeper
Aug 13, 2007 08:31 PM
There are a few different things you can do to take off a retained eyecap and you have to be extremely carefull with all of them. Well almost all of them the first option is to just wait till the next shed and hope it comes off. But if that dont work you can gently hold the snake behind the head and very very gently wipe the eyecap with a moistened q-tip (cotton swab) and somepeople like to put scotch tape around their finger sticky side out and gently touch the snakes eyecap i am told this usually works but i always been a little to paranoid to try it my self but the moist cotton swab has worked for me once before. Also if you are going to try to wait it out and hope it comes off on the next shed you should mist him/her once a day to keep it moist in the cage seeing as how not enough moisture is most likely what caused the eye cap in the first place. Hope this helps.
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B Sleeper
1.0 Chocolate Lab
0.1 ?? Normal Ball python (yet different)
1.0 04 Het Albino
1.1 06 Het Albino
1.1 06 Het Pied
1.0 06 Pastel
0.? 07 Pos Het Albino (Momma has not laid the eggs yet)
Zefdin
Aug 13, 2007 08:44 PM
np!
Ive used the tape method successfully more than once. You have to be ABSOLUTELY sure its a retained eye-cap however. Dont use duct tape or something really sticky. The blue masking tape for delicate surfaces when painting is good.
You can also rub diluted KY gel onto the retained eye-cap every couple days until it come off or this may help the next shed to remove it too.
KangasKritters
Aug 14, 2007 01:40 PM
The warm water Q-Tip method works very well for me.
Dangerously
Aug 15, 2007 10:36 AM
Usually they come off next shed. But in the interim, you can stick the snake in a wet pillow case for a few hours and let it crawl around, that usually knocks it off. If the pillow case doesn't work I'd let it go until next shed. Remember the doctor's first rule and follow it: "First, do no harm". Give nature a chance.. a couple chances.
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