Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If anybody has BP's with retained eye caps or cracked looking dry eyes, here is a recipe for Eye Ointment:
80% Petrolatum (Vaseline) mixed with 20% Mineral Oil.
Both ingredients can be bought at WalMart in the Skincare and Laxative sections for under $5 total.

Rob Reiding.

I used mineral oil once and a herp vet told me it was better to just use water. If they were in the wild they would just go to a water source and soak. Just this morning my female ball shed but still had the caps on her eyes. I simply took a damp wash cloth and covered her head for a few minutes. Then I genlty ran it over her eyes. Caps came right off.

Reason why I posted this recipe is because in the Ball Python Manual by Phillippe de Vosjoli, Roger Klingenberg, D.V.M., David Barker, and Tracy Barker on Page 67 Ball Python Health Trouble Shooting Chart-I it says under opaque film on eye(s) and retained eye cap to apply artificial tears eye ointment twice daily until loosened. When you look at the artificial tears eye ointment in the store and see what the ingredients are, you can see that it is 80% Petrolatum (which is Vaseline) and 20% Mineral Oil. A small tube is about $10 but if you go a few isles over you can find the ingredients Vaseline and Mineral oil for under $5 and when you mix those you'll have many more times the quantity than in the little 2 inch tube for $10. Just thought this might be helpful to someone. I got one BP with eyes looking like a broken car windshield and after applying this ointment for a few days it is already looking 100% better.

Rob Reiding.

adequate humidity for your reptile. That being said, it does happen. I have a 100% success rate simply using a sweat box. Which, BTW, I rarely need to use. Mostly for rescues. Additionally, they regain some of the moisture they are most likely missing as evidenced by poor sheds.
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Jay A. Martin

I agree providing humidity is one of the best ways to prevent incomplete or bad sheds, retained eye caps, and cracked looking eyes. I just received a BP with cracked looking eyes and the person I got her from "forgot" to tell me about it before he send her up. In a case like that there is not much you can do as far as preventing goes. I'm misting her more often than the others and use the ointment, so maybe with her next shed any retained skin on her eyes will come off with the rest of the shed. She is a great looking and healthy CB female otherwise
(almost 1700 Grams).

Rob Reiding.

I hear ya. I just picked up a nice 1700 gram female myself that was kept in an enclosure with a screen top and pine shavings. She was quite dry and has two retained eye caps. I'm going to let her shed them with her next shed. Overall, she looks good except she's very small for her age. I bet this girl should be at least 2500 grams right now. Hopefully, I can get her feeding consistently and she'll be 2500 by next season.
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Jay A. Martin

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this 1700 Gram female I just got except for her eyes. She is CB and about 3 years old so she has good weight for her age and she eats very well, both mice and rats either live or F/T. What more can you ask for? I was looking to breed with her 2005 / 2006 season.

Rob Reiding.

...are also safe and effective

SJM