Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello guys,

I have this N.kaouthia for a year now. He is a cb early 04'.

Anyways he was shedding normally without a problem but 4 days ago he partially shed. Half of his body (including his head and eyes) is still covered with shed skin.

I tried increasing humidty and that didn't work. I tried giving him a warm bath but that didn't work either. Since manually shedding him by hand is not possible, I don't know what to do.

Can you please help me?

Thanks,
Ciga

Hi:

I hate when that happens! Shedding problems with any hot snake is alway a major problem to solve.

Two Ideas I have heard of but have not tried.

Give it another soak then put it in a snakebag that is also wet. Put it in a place that is warm (normal cobra temp) and let it sit there over night. What happens as you've seen before I bet, when colubrids/elapids are bagged they poke around in the bag trying to escape. This should remove that last of the skin. Don't do this for an extended period but one overnight will not hurt.

The other one is spray the unshed area with mineral or Olive oil. This makes for one slippery serpent! It adds mosture to the unshed area making it sluff easier. Also mites if any are present will snuff it.

Last resort, you'll have to hold it and with forceps remove the unshed portion from the eyes & nose. Get help...be careful.

Good Luck

Al
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The more people I meet...the better I like my venomous snakes.

1 step to do before you "hold" the snake if the 2 ideas Al mentioned don't work...

drill some holes in an appropriately sized tube and tube the snake, when he gets to the holes you can try to pick the unshed skin off with a good pair of forceps, or...stop him before he comes out the end of the tube, and with long forceps, carefully remove the unshed skin...

good luck,

Steve

Thank you guys...

I ended up removing the skin manually, which was pretty stressful for me and for the animal.

I removed most of the shed skin (almost all) and also cleaned his eyes however I had to hold his head tightly during the process.

As he was trying to bit me I guess he bit himself and there was some blood. I hope it is not anything major

It was not a good experience at all...

It's always a good idea to "hold" the snake as a last resort, often times the same results can be achieved via less stressful, dangerous, and intrusive ways...

unfortunately, sometimes it's necessary...

good luck,

Steve

Steve is correct and I should have said it also...Holding is always a LAST resort.

Doing Vet proceedures on venomous snakes is NEVER a "good experience" The out comes could be but not limited to:

Did not work and it was very risky.
Got "Chomped" myself
Injured the snake
Killed the snake
or it was successful

Even if it was successful, you're drenched with sweat and need a tranquilizer to settle down from the experience.

Good Luck,

Al
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The more people I meet...the better I like my venomous snakes.

Even if it was successful, you're drenched with sweat and need a tranquilizer to settle down from the experience.
--------------------

Tell me about it...my blood was almost 1/2 adrenaline after the procedure.

Well, he looks fine and ate today so I think everything is ok.

Thank you very much guys...

Great to hear!!

Al
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The more people I meet...the better I like my venomous snakes.

Everyone will experience this problem from time to time. We have had some recent experiences with several species of cobras who came to us in dehydrated condition and as such, had poor sheds. So, this is what we tried and it worked well:

1) We tubed the cobra and allowed just the head to protrube on the other open end of the tube and then restrained the snake so that it couldn't go any further. While my staff was restraining the snake, I then used hemostats to gently "pry" the stuck shed from the tip of the mouth and the gumline. Once we got it started we then slowly peeled the old skin until we got the eye caps off. After that, we then gently, carefully but firmly restrained the the cobra's shed head/neck area with a pinner (and the snake was still tubed). As we peeled the stuck shed off and got a good chunk of it going, we then re-tubed the pinned snake (not something I like to do but in this case, it was a necessity) so that we still had complete control. We then let the snake get the rest off which it did.

2) We did the same exact method with another cobra but didn't pin it. Rather, once we got the head portion off, we just allowed the snake to get the rest off by putting in a pillow case with lots of dampened old rags - using warm water and w/in an hour, everything came off.

Hope this helps a bit. Rob

>>Hi:
>>
>>I hate when that happens! Shedding problems with any hot snake is alway a major problem to solve.
>>
>>Two Ideas I have heard of but have not tried.
>>
>>Give it another soak then put it in a snakebag that is also wet. Put it in a place that is warm (normal cobra temp) and let it sit there over night. What happens as you've seen before I bet, when colubrids/elapids are bagged they poke around in the bag trying to escape. This should remove that last of the skin. Don't do this for an extended period but one overnight will not hurt.
>>
>>The other one is spray the unshed area with mineral or Olive oil. This makes for one slippery serpent! It adds mosture to the unshed area making it sluff easier. Also mites if any are present will snuff it.
>>
>>Last resort, you'll have to hold it and with forceps remove the unshed portion from the eyes & nose. Get help...be careful.
>>
>>Good Luck
>>
>>Al
>>-----
>>The more people I meet...the better I like my venomous snakes.
-----
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL