Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My baby burm is going into its first shed with me, probably its second lifetime shed. I am having trouble keeping the humidity up becuase i have him in a 30 gallon aquarium with a really long mesh top so its really hard to keep the moisture in. Is there anyway to keep the humidity up without getting a new enclosure? And if he were to be experiencing problems getting it off in pieces and such, what should i do to help him?

You're probably going to have to block off some of the top of that tank. The mesh is not going to allow retention of hardly any humidity. Just don't block it ALL off (don't want to suffocate the little thing!). Then, to raise the humidity, just plop a small wad of paper towels on his heating pad and soak the pile with water (ONLY do this if the type of heating pad you use is 100% water proof, ie. "Kane Mats". The heat will conduct very quickly through the wet towels, evaporating the water, and thus raising the humidity. Just be sure to change the paper towels often to keep it from becoming unsanitary. I only do this while my burm is in shed because it pushes the humidity up to 95% easily; which makes for perfect growing conditions for mold and other bad guys.

Hope this helps,
- Mark

>>My baby burm is going into its first shed with me, probably its second lifetime shed. I am having trouble keeping the humidity up becuase i have him in a 30 gallon aquarium with a really long mesh top so its really hard to keep the moisture in. Is there anyway to keep the humidity up without getting a new enclosure? And if he were to be experiencing problems getting it off in pieces and such, what should i do to help him?

I just bought a sun beam humidifier at walgreens $35.00 (thanks Brian Smith), and my tanks are all up to perfect humidity. Mine was as low at 30%, I was spraying the cages twice a day, then I bought this and put it in the room and shut the door and its at 70%. Like the post above I cant leave that going all the time cause mold and the carpet is kind of wet, but I was told if I raise it up off the floor it won't be that bad and don't shut the door and dont leave the hole that the water comes out at full blast. So tommorow I will play with it more.

Good idea, but my cage is in my room so it probably wouldnt be too cool to sleep in.

It should be ok, alot of people leave humidifiers going in the bed room in the winter because it is so dry in the house, just not like a rain forest. I let it go on and off, my snakes just had a perfect shed to, I sprayed twice a day when they started and let that humidfier for for a couple hours through out the day and perfect sock shed.

Liek the others have said use plastic wrap or something simular and plock of like 2/3 or 3/4 of the top. If you do not want to get a humidifier you are going ot have problems. You are going to have to mist the enclosure several times throughout the day and you might still have a hard time getting it to stay high. As far as the incomplete sheds go if you soak the snake in a tub of warm water the pieces should pull off relatively easily. Just make sure that the snakes eyecaps come off. They almost always come off by themselves even with a bad shed but just be observant of the fact that they can retain them. Hope this helps, Todd