Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've now had my yellow-throat plated lizard for several weeks, yet he seems to have problems shedding. He has a large dish in his terrarium to soak in, yet rarely does. All the insects he eats are gut-loaded and he is fed highly nutritional baby food. It takes him a long time to shed because he won't rub up against anything, so I have to help him with this or face the possibility of him getting scale rot.

I just bought a can of Sticky Tongue Farms Miner-All in order to give him an even more nutritionally balanced diet. I've bathed/soaked him during past sheds, to little effect. Is there a brand of shed aid I can safely try with him? He's still bright-eyed, active, basking daily, healing from his past shed problems, and eating heartily when he is hungry (4 large superworms in one sitting before he was full.)

My plated lizard doesn't rub against things to shed either. He just waits (I guess) until one of my friends comes over and proceeds to pet the scales off of him. He isn't the same type of plated that you have, but I get the impression that they aren't like most lizards when it comes to shedding. Their skin is too 'plated' to let them shed like more smoothe scaled lizards.

I don't think that your lizard needs to be bathed though. The yellow throated lizard comes from very dry/rocky environments. They are designed to not need a lot of moisture. If he does have a problem, it is very unlikely that it would be a humidity/moisture problem. Adding a large water bowl to the cage would bring the humidity above what they would find in wild situations, and therefore would be more than sufficient.

Good for you getting the supplements. I used Reptical with Vit.D and Reptimin multivitamins for my plated lizard, along with a calcium adding water conditioner.

Many petstores sell shedding aids for lizards/snakes, and all should be perfectly safe. I've used them on my plated in the past. Because of their plates though, you still have to rub a little to get those scales to fall. I don't bother with it anymore. Water with a little vegetable oil, shaken and sprayed, seems to do the exact same thing.

I wouldn't worry about your plated. As long as he is in the appropriate environment (dry with rough bark or stones to rub against, a hiding place, etc) he should be fine.
Make sure to feed a variety of foods, dusted with supplements.

Also, I'm not sure if you know this, but having a UVA/UVB light fixture in addition to your heat source is VITAL to keeping these lizards healthy. If you don't have one, that very well may be your problem.

Also, as most if not all plated lizards are wild collected, he may have endo or exo parasites or be stressed out from the transition to captivity.
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~Sara~
5.5 ball pythons
1.0 Black-lined plated lizard (Lizzy Butt)
0.1 Burmese Python (Pixil)
2.1 Pet Rats
1.1 Dogs (Ozzie and Mandy)
0.1 Cat (Isis)
0.0.1 Synodontis Catfish (Big Spotty Fish)
0.2 Convict Cichlids

The light in his terrarium is a UVA/UVB Sunglo that works as a primary heat source during the day (the undertank heater takes over for the night) and a basking light due to its position. As I got him from a very good, family-run shelter, I know that they take new animals to a vet in order to assure adopters that their animals are healthy. I'll definitely try the oil-water mixture to see if that helps. At least he's gotten used to me rubbing scales off him, although he's (unfortunately) ticklish.

Here's hoping that in he'll get back the nice layer of beautiful scales he had when I got him!

Good luck!
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~Sara~
5.5 ball pythons
1.0 Black-lined plated lizard (Lizzy Butt)
0.1 Burmese Python (Pixil)
2.1 Pet Rats
1.1 Dogs (Ozzie and Mandy)
0.1 Cat (Isis)
0.0.1 Synodontis Catfish (Big Spotty Fish)
0.2 Convict Cichlids