Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I found a Great basin baby the other day. Saw about 5 of them that day. All looked healthy except this one. Looked very dehydrated. Its just a newborn.
But it is trying to have its first shed, and its skin is soo wrinkled!! It lays in a wavey pattern and on every turn its body makes its skin sticks out in wrinkles, if that makes sense. It needs to shed so badly, but for whatever reason it is having trouble. I took it home and put it in a humidity tub for 24 hours, it didnt seem to help, so I did it again. Then I peeled the skin off the head at least to give it SOME comfort and help it to see better. The skin was stuck bent backwards dried on its nose. Like it started to shed, but got too dry or dehydrated.
It was VERY thirsty too. Drank right out of my hand (wearing gloves of course) without even thinking of biting me. It gulped down water an some reptile vitamins for about 10 minutes before it was satisfied!
I put it in a tank with Calsand, some water with more vitamins in it, a rock for rubbing its skin offf, and a hidey place, a little hide box with wet newspaper for humidity to help it shed too. And a UV heatlamp. 50 WAT. It has been 4 days since I brought him home. 2 days spent in the humidity tub. And 2 in his new home. He still has the skin stuck at his neckline and looks more dehydrated. Any ideas on what might be wrong and how to help him? I can only peel so much safely off of him! But the poor bugger needs to get taht skin off.

...is get a plastic shoebox w holes in it, put room-temperature water in it about 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep, drop the snake in it and cap it up for 1/2 hour or so.

It'll also give him an opportunity to get a drink.

You should be able to hook him back into his cage and he'll shed it off himself.

Good luck,

Chris

This is good advice about the soak. If I might add, do not make it much deeper that he is high. Sometimes they get panicked if they are forced to float. Also, if they do hold their breath and float, their back stays dry and doesn't get the benefit of the soak. Make it just deep enough so he can lay on the bottom of the container such that he is just barely completely submerged. Usually, they will settle down like this with their head sticking up on the side of the container. If he has a really dry shed on you can leave him for several hours. Just keep it from getting too cool.

Also, not to be too pushy or arrogant, and I mean this only as friendly advice.... I have several friends who have regretted using gloves.... even with tiny little buzztails. There is no substitute for using proper hands off tools. Nuff said!!!

Good luck!!

What would YOU use if you had to peel it off yourself? Mind you it is just a newborn, so my tongs...are WAY too big. lol
But what else can I use to hold it sturdy without hurting it while I peel the skin? I am not too worried about it penitrating the glove as it has been bitten many times before by newborns. Its an extremely thick leather glove. About 1/4 inch leather and another 1/4 inch cotton. The only problem with it is it is so thick you cant really get a good grip or feel what exactly you are doing!
I soaked the poor guy for 24 hours, and while it did loosen his skin enough to get it off the head by me taking it off, it is still stuck to his body.
Its been 3 days now in his new home and the skin still hasnt budged. He is still very active. Always moving from one side to the other and basking in his heat lamp. But he hasnt rubbed the skin off for some reason.
I want to peel the skin off today after another soak. But I want the best advice on doing it safely. I have no problems handling large venomoids. But these tiny things are a bit more delicate.
Here's a pic of him if you can see his skin in the pic.
It's not the best pics, but you can see teh wrinkled folds in his skin where he bends. Poor guy.


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Crazy ZooLady

to fill a container with a couple of inches of aspen bedding or pine shavings and then fill it with water to the top of the shavings and leave the snake over night. When I soak in plain water the snakes usally flaot or keep their heads above the water and never get the peeling process started. With the wet shavings they crawl around and although the water doesen't cover them, the combination of crawling and the texture of shavings always works to get the skin off. Also in situations like yours where the snake has become very dried it might shed the majority of the skin off but still look very dry and bad afterward. They usually go directly into another shed to fix the situation.

I've never thought of it.

I've done similar w wet paper towels, but never w bedding.

Good lookin out.

Chris

Hi guys,
While soaking problem shedders I have had good sucsess with useing a nice, fully cleaned rock to start the peeling procsess. The down fall to this is that somtimes they will perch on that rock! Useing a thin peice of slate usualy helps thwart this to an extent (makes the rock easier to submerged). I also make the water warm enough to have the sides of the containor fog up and this stimulates activity. Even if they arent crawling around for the sake of sloughing they generaly snag the skin on somthing. Once that happens they tend to get the idea and actualy attempt to shed.

Just a thought.

Adios,
Jeremy

Rich's method and comments above is another good idea. The only thing I would caution about is to be careful that you do it in such a way that the snake can't trap itself under the wet shavings and drown. Seems like a long shot, but if it is weak from what it is going through, that is a possibility. That idea is a good one though and should work.

As for the use of gloves, that is up to you. I am only sharing what I have learned from others.

What I would do to hand shed it would be to run it through a tube such that the head and neck are out an inch or two, get the skin of off the at area with long blunt tweezers (obvious in this method is that you never get near enough with anything but tools to juniors mouth). If it doesn't come off easily, it needs additional soaking / moisture / loosening. Then, using tongs, let it crawl through the tube into another tube such that the only exposed area is where you are removing skin. This prevents the short length of head and neck from pulling back out of the front tube. Then, once you get far enough down the body, one tube will work fine. It is tricky, should be done by two people, but it is much safer (my opinion). Years ago when I worked at a large zoo with a cosmopolitan collection, this is how we did mambas, taipans and other much faster tough to handle critters. Luckily, we rarely had dry shed problems.

Well,
I went ahead and did it yesterday. Got most the skin off anyhow. I soaked him again, this time putting in mieral oil with the warm water. And I put the bucket near a heat lamp to keep it all warm. Gave it a few hours, then went back and saw little brown colored dead scales floating in the water mixture.
I took him out and just pinned his head, and rubbed his body down with a wash cloth to get the rest of the skin off. It all came off in little tiny pieces and scale looking pieces. Like individual scales. I have never seen a snake shed like this before. I have seen bad sheds, but none like this. Then I put him back into his encloser and today he is till getting a little off the upper part of his body near his head. But other than that he looks good. Very sandy though! lol the poor thing has sand all over him from the bit of oil that was still on his body. I rubbed most of it off with the washcloth, but aparently there was enough there to make it stick still. Seems to help with getting that last bits of skin off though.
Thanks for all your thoughts and ideas.
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Crazy ZooLady