Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello! We have two uromastyxes, a male and a female. The female has been having problems shedding on her tail. About half the tail is done, and the lower half remains. It's evident that the scales are ready to come off, because you can see through them like they were made of glass or plastic. The problem is that they are absolutely rock hard!! I've managed to get some off, and we also went to see and expert who managed to get some off too, but even the ones that come off are hard as rock! Even if i put those in water (just to test, to see what it would take to get the scales on the actual lizard to be soft), they stay rock hard! I mean, you could build houses and use these as a foundation, they're hard as panzer. Anyway, the expert we went to, put some oil/salv on the scales, some silver stuff i think. He also told us to dip the tail in hydroperoxide once the scales come off, and then apply some antiseptic. We found all the salves in the pharmacy store so that's not a problem. The problem is getting them off without hurting the poor lizard. Does anyone have a clue about this? It would be so so much easier if the skin/scales were softer. I often read about using a toothbrush to get the scales off in a careful manner, now that won't work here. These need force!! I'm not happy about it. I'm also pretty sure it's not too early for them to come off, because it was some time before the first half of the tail shed. And as i said, it's very obvious when you look at the tail that the scales are supposed to come off. They just don't.

Also, any idead about what might have caused this (feeding, lighting, humidity etc) are welcome. Reply to the message here, or write to us directly at terrorskater@hotmail.com

/Jonas

Jonah,

What is the humidity in your tanks or enclosure? If it is below 30% your going to run into shedding problems and they can get below that this time of year with heaters running in households.

A big myth about some species of Uro's is that they should have low humidity, they are most comfortable and do not have shed problems around 40-50% humidity.... the safety range is 30-60%. Only over 70% are you going to run the risk of fungal infections or on areas that do no shed properly it is increased also due to the fluid being trapped under the unshed skin or on skin tags for extended periods.
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www.reptilerooms.com

Isis had some serious stuck shed on her tail. It looked like several layers of shed that have not come off in months. I experienced the same things you described; hard skin, difficult to peel off, baths not working, etc.
She has a humid hide (lightly moist but not damp) and I always water her food before I feed it to her. It took a while but eventually the scales have started coming off all on their own. Make sure that your uro is getting enough hydration through its food as well as easy access to a humid hide.

I hope this helps

Here's a pic of Isis currently going through her tail shed all on her own. Keep in mind that her tail was completely covered in stuck about a month ago.

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1.1 Mali Uromastyx (Ra and Isis)

n/p

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1.1 Mali Uromastyx (Ra and Isis)

Have you tried a drop of baby oil. I have heard that could help. I have not tried it myself but I do remember someone else in this forum saying to use it.

Lance
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1 male bearded dragon named Lenny
1 female bearded dragon named Jewels (RIP 1/14/05)
1 male or female mali uro named Milo or molly (not sure anymore)

and that's just for overall tank humidities. In the wild uromastyx only spend a little time each day in the open where there is low humidity. Just enough time to eat, bask, etc., then they are back to their burrows which are sometimes over 6' deep, making them very humid.

Really, for the most part, reptiles can't survive well without somewhere to go that will give them higher humdity. That's why reptiles will often hide under wood, rocks, etc....or sometimes, in the case of uros and monitors, they will dig burrows. All of these places have higher humidity. I have soil in my uro's tank, and when I water it the bottom of her retes stack (the bottom section is only open on one side, and it's submerged into the soil) naturally becomes a sort of humid hide. I can tell she doesn't think this is quite good enough though because often she will try to dig out underneath it, sort of like it would be the entrance to a burrow, if she had the space. In my next cage I think I'm going to try to give her enough soil that she can actually dig a burrow. My leopard gecko has a humidity shelter, but I'm trying to think of a way to improve upon this...something more natural. I know that they would naturally hide in rock crevaces which offer higher humdity. I'm just not sure how to reproduce this. I'm going to start keeping my beardie on soil too, and I'm going to give him some cork bark and flat wood that he can dig under, which will give him hides with higher humdity.

Humidity is important for desert herps too....it's just a matter of how you do it. If you make the entire enclosure humid you're bound to run into problems. Usually they just have hiding spots that they go to that give them higher humidity. In the wild they know exactly what to look for, so now I'm trying to figure out what they look for when they're trying to find a more humid hiding spot. It can be hard to figure out for some species.

also, reptiles are all about conservation of energy. Uromastyx bask at high temperatures, so they don't need to bask for as long as say, a bearded dragon would, to get the same benefits. Reptiles take in food (including vitamins, minerals, etc.) plus heat, and they mix it together to make energy. Reptiles like leopard geckos aren't as a whole too energetic, which fits the way they maintain their energy. I've never been in their wild habitat, but I assume that they get their heat mostly from coming out at night and laying on rocks that had heated up in the hot sun all day. Doing this they wouldn't get as much heat as say, a uromastyx basking on a rock that has a surface temperature of 145 degrees for an hour or two. They do get enough energy though to be able to go out to hunt (which in turn brings them more energy), reproduce, run their bodies, etc. A bearded dragon tends to bask much more during the day, and their temperatures are more in between. Usually around 100-110 degrees (with basking surface temps varying). So basically they gain a lot of energy which they then use to hunt, digest food (which gives them more energy), reproduce, etc. It's really all just cycles if you think about it. I think I better end these thoughts now. It's 1 AM right now, so I gotta get going.

But basically, a reptile that spends time in extremely hot temperatures with very low humidity would shrivel up and die if it didn't have somewhere to go to to conserve it's water reserves. In captivity this isn't too much of a problem because of the amount of water in the food we feed, but in the desert the food doesn't have a lot of moisture in it, so uromastyx, for instance, will go into their burrows so that the moisture of breathing will not be lost by evaporation. Sometimes they will even get into their burrows, and close them off, so that they make a sort of humidity chamber. All I've heard of with this is that they do this to conserve moisture, but I think that they could very well do this to gain moisture as well. I mean, if there is a lot of moisture in the air (being 6' below surface there will be), I would think the uro would take it in somehow.

Reptiles are just amazing creatures if you really think about it. I'd better go to bed now.

I think the moisture things you said makes sense, but i'm not sure you're right. My experience with clinical studies taught me never to really believe something till it's very well proven. Often though two different explanations about the same thing can both be true because we don't know all the underlying conditions that interact to make something happen. In this case, i don't think anything particular has gone wrong, i'm trying the baby oil thing and i think it has effect. Thanks for that tip, whoever wrote it!

/Jonas

and that's by doing it, and that's what they've done at pro exotics. I think their results are good enough evidence for me that uros will do better on a setup with deep diggable dirt and very high basking temperatures. Their uros grew to sexual maturity about 3 times (or more) faster than they usually do in captivity.

Also, some of the other big uromastyx people (deer fern farms and agama international) recognize that uros do need a shelter to go to that offers higher humidity.

That, plus the overwhelming evidence of burrowing in the wild, would lead me to believe that they (pro exotics) are on the right track with this one. It's a lot like with monitors. Ten years ago people were keeping them on newpaper with crappy basking temps, and they weren't doing well. Since they started replicating the resources they'd have in their natural environment (burrowing substrates and high heat), they've had tremendous success at maintianing them (this is a generalization for monitors too...not all are the same). With uros we're not so far off, because you can keep a healthy uro in the conditions that are basically standard for today, but I think that it can be improved on. The same goes for bearded dragons.