Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone know a good remedy for removing multiple retained eye caps?
My blackrat just shed and left a cap on his eye that I can't seem to get ahold of with a pair of tweezers.He had one stuck on the same eye before he was brumated,so he now has two caps on the same eye.Does mineral oil work?

You need to wet a pillowcase and toss your snake in it overnight.Place half the pillowcase on some heat.Then gently use your fingernail to remove it.Not tweezers.You can rip an eye out easily.If the pillowcase overnight trick doesnt work try soaking in a covered tub for a few more hours.If that doesnt work take it to the vet.Ive seen snakes that had several eyecaps retained and the snake lost the sight in that eye.My herp vet plucks a few eyes out a year.I had the same problems with farm raised ball pythons.Ive read were people use vegtable oil mineral oil etc.Oil is only good for stir frying snakes...Paul

I had a similar problem with my new Bairdi.
She had a problem shedding and one eye cap was still on when she was done. I put her in a small plastic container with some (warm) wet paper towels and a rock. I put the container on the warm side of the cage and left her there for about two hours.
When I checked in on her the eye cap was laying on the paper towels.
I was really happy because I was worried about hurting her eye with a tweezer or my finger nail.

Try it out.

Good luck,
Tom

The humid hide idea is great, really moisten the heck out of the cap. What works great and is of very little risk is using a cotton tipped applicator (Q-tip?) and rolling it over the eye cap to brush it off. If this doesn't work, you can take to the vet, or wait until the next shedding cycle and try a very wet container as suggested prior, and it may still come off with the entire skin.

Having 2 on the same eye is bad.It wont come off on the third shed.

I have used scotch tape wrapped around my finger with the sticky side out. Lightly touch it to the eye cap and gently pull.