Reptile & Amphibian Forums

maybe this is just me being a nervous new parent but my new brooks king shed but still has a few little pieces of old skin hanging on around the underside of his head area and tail, I don’t feel like it’s a big deal, but I wanted to check to be sure. Thanks for all your help.

Be glad you asked. Stuck shed condition should be treated as soon as possible.

One way to help is to simply put lukewarm water in a plastic container that the snake can easily fit in, to a depth of only about 1/2 the diameter of the snake's body. You don't want the snake to have to swim to avoid drowning. You want the snake to rest on the bottom in the water with no chance of drowning. Leave the snake in for a good 20 minutes.

Another alternative is to use moist substrate in a box instead of water. Eco-Earth and similar coconut husk based products work well for this. In this case leave the snake in that container for a few hours.

In the future, soak the snake as described above or put in a box with moist eco-earth or whatever when the snake is due to shed. This will hydrate the snake and should prevent stuck sheds.

Good luck.

>>maybe this is just me being a nervous new parent but my new brooks king shed but still has a few little pieces of old skin hanging on around the underside of his head area and tail, I don’t feel like it’s a big deal, but I wanted to check to be sure. Thanks for all your help.

I'll do just that, thanks for your help

My Hypo brooksi just shed about a week and a half ago FINALLY after trying for about 4 days. For those 4 days, she only got to about an inch past her head, and she was giving up. She couldn't shed the rest of the way. I was freaking out, so I posted for opinions on this site, and HOTSHOT suggested I get a lukewarm wet washcloth and hold it and kind of wrap it around the snake and let it slither out of the washrag. This worked incrdibly well. Took about 20 minutes for her to shed. I couldn't believe it. I tryed making her cage more moist, I tried putting her in a container on wet paper towels, none of this worked except the washcloth thing. If the aforementioned suggestions don't work, you might wanna try this. I'm sure they will though since it's just a few pieces of skin.