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this morning I was looking at my juvi pastel ball python's eyes this morning and noticed on one eye what looked like a dent in the middle of the eyecap. He just shed a week ago and I checked the shed and I thought that both caps were in the shed, but I assumed that what I was seeing was from an eye cap not being shed, so I moistened a Q-tip and wiped the eye hoping the cap would come off, I didn't see a cap come off but when I looked again the eye looked normal. Could it be that his eye was just a little dehydrated? Anyone have any advice or similar experience to help. I will check him again tonight when I get home. Thank you very much.

Hi.

An eye cap should not normally make the eye appear dented. Unless, of course, the cap itself was dented and coming off of the eye (but this would've been easy to detect).

Hydration, or the lack of it, would not cause any shape abnormalities of the eye. All the same, it's best to have fresh water available always.

I was cared for a ball that somebody literally discarded. It had a dent in its eye, but it was an actual / permanent dent. Probably from being dropped or otherwise mistreated. Some people!

If the eye appears normal now, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Normally, a retained eye cap is visible around the edges of the eye. If you don't see that, just wait until the next time the snake sheds and check to be sure the caps came off.

-Brandon
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I actually have heard of eyes becoming "dented" when the snake's dehydrated, and it's happened here. Once he got back in his cage and drank/soaked for a little bit, he was back to his old self.
If it looks like it's gone back to normal, you're probably set.

-Jaime
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2.1 Normal Ball Pythons ('04-Captain Jack; '05-BoBo; '05-Queen Latifa)
0.1 Normal Corn Snake ('06-Little Prince)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Blondie)
2.0 Fancy Rats (Ho0dz, Donnie)

thanks for the replies, he looks fine now, he has a water dish that is big enough to soak in but he ate a rat on monday and looked like a fat sausage and I think he was just laying in his hide on the heat side for the last couple days to digest, so maybe he just got a little dehydrated. I pretty sure it wasn't an eyecap now because it wasn't funny looking around the edges at all. Thanks again