Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So my male just shed a few days ago and I am kinda concerned about his underbelly scutes? Check this pic out. It seems like they are cracking apart or something. This is not just un-shed skin either after examining it. Anyone know what might cause that? He eats like a horse and has zero behavioral changes at all that would lead me to think he was sick. He is active when he gets hungry, drinks from his water dish regularly, and all in all seems as healthy as my similar sized female who does not have any scutes like that. Maybe this is a normal thing they go through as they grow into full size adults? Not really sure, haven't seen or noticed it before. He is on Zoo-Med Aspen bedding and it is not damp. Temps are room temps as these guys dont do well in higher heated settings. I will be setting up a trip to the vet here but thought Id check to see in here if I am over reacting or if I have an issue on my hands that might be a problem. Some of his scutes that dont have the crackle stuff, look like they are split down the middle rather than one whole peice going across his underside. No injury or anything like that, they just have a split line on some of them for a while and then it goes back to no split line on normal whole scutes again. Is very weird. He is an 06 so he aint all that old either. He has been shedding a fair amount, about every 3 weeks or so. Thanks for any input anyone can give me!!

Would like to see the picture to take a look at what's going on. Shedding every 3 weeks for an 06 animal sounds like there is definately something going on with the skin that the body is trying to heal via the shed process. Try to post the pic again. A trip to the vet is a good idea - hopefully that vet is knowledgable of reptiles otherwise, they may not be much help.

Dave
DNS Reptiles

I agree with Dave, shedding every 3 weeks sounds off to me.. The cracked scales issue is usually caused by damp/dirty substrate (NOT SAYING YOURS IS). If you can post a pic we will be able to give you a better opinion on this.

~ Mike Russo

Thanks to both of you guys (Dave, Mike) for the replies. I will go make a photo album so I can post more pics asap! Work is a tad busy today so I will hop on this as soon as time permits here. And not to worry I dont freak out about being told if I am making a mistake with husbandry, I just got into black milks the last few months so I am relatively new to them. What gets me confused is how my female is thriving in the same type of set up as my male, yet my female is gorgeous and perfect with no problems, but my male seems to be having trouble.

Hey Mike and Dave here are some pics, I hope I do this right haha!

Well, it looks like scale rot to me.. Your tank is VERY nice and it appears to be very well kept.

What are yoou using to heat this enclosure and what is under the aspen? Really, what I am trying to figure out is if there there is any moisture trapped under the bedding that i cannot see under form the photo? When you put your hand under the bedding is it dry or kind of damp?

~ Mike Russo

Yeeks!!! That does not sound good! Yeah I had my tank custom made and I do my best to keep up with cleaning it whenever he makes any type of mess.

I actually dont have heat in the enclosure right now due to the temps where I live and due to what I know of the black milks not liking it to be overly warm. My room temps stay around the low 70's on average I would say, and it climbs to the high 70's to low 80's on really hot days. But thats not too often. In the winter I use a space heater for my room. My rat and pine snakes both have uth heaters that I obtained from the Bean Farm though as they like it hotter. What is so strange is that my female black milk has no problems at all, yet has the very same type of set up and no extra heat either just like my male. Under the aspen I dont have anything other than the melanin wood bottom. I checked yesterday for moisture but did not find any. I wonder however, while I was going through it all I did find some past defections that he made under the aspen rather than on top like he does more often. But there were maybe two small spots of that and very dry. I didnt think he would do his business while he was burrowed in so I now see that is not the case. But in light of that, all was very dry and it seems far fetched that a couple small buried turds would make him react like that. But then I could be very wrong too. I found a couple hidden gems buried in my females cage as well while I was doing this. Yet she is fine and he is having a problem. Maybe he just has really sensitive skin compared to her perhaps. I will go read up on scale rot and see what I can learn about it and how to get it treated.

So did you recently acquire this snake or have you raised it up from a hatchling?

The set up looks fine, I keep mine on aspen with a similar sized water bowl and they do fine. If I didn't know any better, I would guess that it was sitting on damp substrate and the scales were rotting.

If you've had this snake since it was a hatchling and this condition just developed and you've maintained him on dry aspen the whole time, I am somewhat at a loss on what the issue could be.

Did you find a good reptile vet?

Dave
DNS Reptiles

No I have only had him a little over a month. I did contact the prior owner as she asked me to stay in touch with her about his well being. She indicated she had never seen him have these symptoms at all. She only had him about half a year though. Either way it more looks like its something with me or with my set up. I just got done re-cleaning his cage again and changing out all the old aspen with new aspen. I have been running him through my hands with a soft antibacterial hand soap I have here the last 2 days and then rinsing him off profusely. It probably wont do much but maybe it will help a little! I did get some vet references so I will be calling tomorrow to set something up asap! Thanks for your thoughts on this I really appreciate it!! I will report back as soon as I know anything or see any change good or bad. Lets pray for good though

This may sound kind of strange, but I have had success with using iodine (Betadine). I had a mexican black that came to me as a rescue that had this same problem. After speaking to several reptile keepers I tried putting betadine on a gauze pad and running it over the snake (try to stay away from the head and mouth). After several rubbings along with maintaining a REALLY clean cage, he shed the bad scales away.

Good luck with it.
-----
Kyle

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

8.9.2 Milks and Kings
2.2 Hognose
3.3 Kenyan Sand Boas
0.1.14 Texas Rat Snake
1.1 Macklots Pythons
1.1 Geckos

No not strange at all!! Sounds like something to consider if I dont see some results here soon. Thanks for the info there very much!! And yeah I keep his head away from everything when I am workin on him. I'll admit to not keepin a totally perfect and sterile cage (as I spot clean for the most part right after he goes) and have not had issue with it in the past for other snakes, but with him I will be keeping the total overhaul cage cleaning under a tighter regimen here out.

He shed last night and thankfully most of those odd crusty scales healed up and he looks almost normal again. So a great sign that he is in the healing process and not getting worse. The vet was not a ton of help when I went, kinda got the same info from him as I did online. But anyhow, things looking better and he is back out on patrol waiting to be tossed a nice yummy rat to eat.

Cool it looks like I did it right in that last response. As you can somewhat see (in the last reply not this one), there are random spots where the scales are just crackled or something, and then some of his scutes have a line in the middle of them for some weird reason. The random line kinda comes and goes on down his belly and then ends and goes back to normal just before his tail. I am not as concerned about the line as it looks like a fold in the skin or something (just kinda weird is all), it's all the crackles that appeared this past week that worry me.

Here is one last pic of how my setup looks. Any advice or thoughts you guys might have would be very much appreciated! I am researching vets in my area because as you guys stated, it would be kinda pointless to have a vet waste my time if he is not one that really knows snakes well. And I dont have money to burn on wasted office visits just to be told they dont know what it is, or to try a bunch of trial and error treatments by a guy who is just guessing the problem. Again thanks for any help or advice you can provide guys!!!