Four months ago I bought an adult emerald. She arrived a bit on the thin side and her scales seemed very dry. I have kept the humdity near 85-90% and mist her 2 times a day, her cage temp is 84 in the middle, 90 at the top and about 80 on the bottom. she has a high and low perch. When I mist her, the water drops immediately was absorbed by her skin and I thought her scales were just so dry and would take a long time to rehydrate them. She was not very tame so I dint handle her except when Cleaning out the cage I put her in a small tub while I scrub everything down. The whole five months she has been here she hasnt shed. She has always looked darker than most emeralds from the start. I was handling her the other day after I cleaned the cage out and noticed she had a few belly scales that had just a brown tint on the edge and a few blackish scales on her tail. I started reading everything on the internet and am sure she has a mild case of scale rot. I read to soak her in a mixture of perioxide and water to clean it up really good then put an antibotic ointment on it. So I fixed up her a small tub with about 1/3 peroxide to 2/3 water and put her in it to soak. I came back about 30 min later and noticed she was bubbly and she had lots of shed skin coming off. And she was really bright where the skin and came off. I gently started rubbing her while she was in the water and over 2 hours we had peeled off an entire shed that must have been stuck to her the whole time she has been here! It was like she knew I was trying to help her she was very calm and actually crawled through my fingers and seemed very grateful I was helping her. I thought she was just dark but she is more medium green now. And I guess her skin sucked up the water because she had the old dried skin on her. Her belly looks 100% better but some of the blackish spots on her tail are bumpy and brown now, I assume they are drying out. I cleaned her up really good and put a triple antibotic oitment on it. Neither one of her eye caps came off and only one nostril got all the skin out. She kept putting her head under the water and blowing bubbles with the one side of her nose! I am going to continue bathing her in the solution and appling the oitment every 3 days and will probably swab her down with betadine daily. Does anyone else know what I can do to help get her other nostril cleaned out without hurting her. I put a bit of mineral oil on her eyes to help soften the stubborn eye cap but I think it will take a while to soften it up.
I have deceased the humdity and ventilated it a bit more. I have been only lightly misting her with just one squirt instead of 2 or 3 minutes. I know she needs to be a lot drier till this is healed but I dont want her to get a respiratory infection from being too dry.
I know that everything I have read says scale rot is due to bad husbandry but I have her temps and humidity exactly as every book says I should and she hasnt been in her feces as I clean that up instantly and she never gets in the floor. I think the old stuck shed i didnt even know about kept too much water on her skin. Her cage is also well ventilaed.
Its just been a day but her attitude is 100% better. I feel so foolish for not realizing she had a stuck shed sooner but there was no loose skin and she seemed so dry and dark. Thanks for all your help!
