Reptile & Amphibian Forums

About a week ago I noticed something happening to the scales on the rear half of my thayeri kingsnake’s body. The scales look like they are drying up. There are no wounds or blisters on the body. I fear that whatever it is, it will spread toward her head. She lives on a plastic rack with ambient room humidity and back wall heating kept at 84 F. The ambient temp. stays high but varies (75-80). Her cage is kept dry and she has newspaper for substrate. Cages are cleaned once a weak and water bowls are bleached. She shows no sign of respiratory. What is going on?

Does this look like retained shed?
Is this what scale “rot” looks like? Can I treat it with betadine baths and silvadine cream? If so what dilution of betadine should I use? I gave her a humid hide with wet sphagnum moss and she seems to be staying in it. Is this just do to low humidity? Could it be bacterial? I’m really worried. If this doesn’t clear up soon I’ll take her to a vet.
Thanks for any advice.
Jessica

Gosh, I've never seen that before but depending on what you use for bedding, maybe you should switch to newspaper for a while. How long have you had her? Have you made any changes? How long has she been like this? If chaning her substrate to newspaper doesn't help, meaning if you don't see improvement after the next shed, please do take her to the vet. I don't know what else to suggest and from the looks of the lack of responses here, it doesn't seem that anyone else knows what this is either. Will you come back and let us know once you figure it out?