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I hope you can help. Not realizing my snakes' tail was underneath it's hidebox, I slid the box across the tank and in doing so, about 1 inch of the snakes scales came off of the tip of it's tail, leaving what appears to be bare bone behind. Do you know if the skin will grow back?

The snake had shed about 1 hour before this incident. The snake is a 6 month on Surinam.

Thanks for any responses

Quite often with injuries like that an amputation of the exposed part is necessary. Tails can get infected quite easily due to poor blood supply and anything with exposed bone needs to see a vet sooner rather than later. That snake needs to be on antibiotics IMO.

I'm assuming this is a degloving where the whole tip of the tail is exposed, not just a little cut where you can see down to the bone, am I right? If the skin has not been completely removed circumferentially then yes, with proper treatment that could heal, though you wouldn't ever have scales back there but again, if there is exposed bone you want antibiotics.

Sounds like you need some professional help for a situation like that...simply sliding a hide over a snake's tail should not have exposed bone unless the hide was something very heavy, jagged, or abrasive like a cinder block or such, could there have been an existing medical problem such as malnutrition or previous injury resulting in an already necrotic tail? I'd keep it moist with an antibiotic ointment and find a herp vet pronto.

Thanks every one!!

Now that I've had a closer look, it appears that the bone has forced through the end of the tail. There is no broken skin in the tank. I'd be able to see if there was because I'm using paper towel as the substrate.

This is bazaar. The bone now appears to have retracted and is no longer sticking out. Has anyone heard of this before?

The entire tail needs to shed. If there is a scar or anything else that may make it more difficult to shed, you will have to pay attention to make sure that tail tip sheds completely. A retained skin on the tail will make it that much more difficult the nest time a shed occurs. Without the shedding the skin will build up at that point and eventually kill the tail tip. They can survive that but you want to keep the entire tail.

That being said, I have seen quite a few imported adult Peruvian Red Tail Boas back in the day and three or four of them had short tails. Stumpy due to loosing the end of it. So a tail injury isn't that unusual but you want to avoid that in the future and use a topical antibiotic in the mean time. Don't forget to make sure the whole skin sheds at that tail tip.
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The tip of her tail is back to poking through the end of the scales. She didn't lose any scales it's like the cartlidge or bone part pokes through and moves and goes back in. (looks like the scales move up the end of her tail and go back down) It looks like a transparent white gummy like worm.
Please email me at mikedegroot@rogers.com and I will email photos of the tail. I do have a vet appointment this coming Wednesday.

Thanks,
Mike

So it sounds like the tail(under lying bone & muscle) pretty much pokes through a hole created in the skin. The skin can and will move a little, slide around. Sounds like that is what is happening.I've had a couple different experiences with skin cuts, injuries with Boas, I repaired using super glue.It holds the injured skin together allowing the body to repair like stitches might. The only difference would be that stitches could not be used in the situations I'm talking about.Because Boas have very thin skin. So unless the injury / cut is deep enough into the flesh stitches are not an option. This is when crazy glue works perfectly.keeping your Boas injury moist with applications of triple antibiotic are extremely important until you get to the vet. I don't know what the vet might decide to do. I believe he will have 2 options save the tail with surgical super glue or clip it.
. . . . . Lar M
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