Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently acquired an infant cali. banded kingsnake. Even when I bought her, she had a bit of old skin on the very tip of her tail. Well, I got her out today and she had some more on her tail. I gently pulled it off, but now there's a gap between the flesh of her tail and the beginning of this old shed and it's bleeding. I've put neosporin on it, but I need some help in figuring out how to get this dead skin off her. It looks like it's constricted the tail tip, preventing it from fleshing out with the rest of her.

(Sorry the picture is so crappy. Had to use my webcam cuz my camera is broken.)

Unless you catch this problem early the snake is probably going to lose the end of its tail. Soak it in some lukewarm water and try to very gently rub the skin off. If that does not work keep using neosporin and monitor it to make sure the flesh does not start to rot. The tip will fall off eventually and should be purely cosmetic.

So it's not going to adversely affect how she grows, cause any weird internal problems, or in any way harm her to lose that tiny bit of tail?

If only the tip of the tail is affected it will not cause any internal problems. If it gets too high it may affect the reproductive organs especially of a male. Monitor the condition to prevent infection and it should fall off and not have any major effect. It is just going to give you a stubby tailed snake and be purely cosmetic.

Alrighty then. Thank you! =)