PDA

View Full Version : How do I know if all the skin is off?


How do I know if all the skin is off?

Pinklady
11-18-2005, 05:28 PM
Hi

I'm looking for some help/advice. Both our snakes have now shed once since having them. Odin had a perfect shed a couple of weeks ago, and Drake had a terrible shed last night :eek1:
In both tanks the humidity was the same. I had put a moist hide in when their eyes went blue.
Today Drake still had pieces of shed hanging off him, so I put him in a smalller box with moist paper towels. Lots of pieces came off there but I'm not sure about the tip of his tail. Because there were so many small pieces of skin I don't know if the tail piece was in there. How can I tell by looking at him if it's on or off? I do not want him to lose the tip of his tail, but I have no idea what to look for!
Before putting him in the moist paper towels it was obvious he had loads of dry skin stuck to him-now he looks okay, but I'm not convinced it all came off cos I couldn't see it.
He was seriously unimpressed with the moist box, and was breathing really heavily so we put him back in his tank to settle down. He's out cruising now, and seems back to his normal self but I also don't want to stress him out.

Thanks for looking, and hope you can help :cheers:

pcar
11-18-2005, 05:49 PM
just take a look at the tip of the tail and look for any color difference in that than the rest of his body. That is usually the best way to check.

mourne
11-18-2005, 05:56 PM
You could maybe find out by feeling it.

Pinklady
11-19-2005, 04:24 PM
Thanks

It did look slightly duller, and I put him back in the moist box which did nothing. My husband finally managed to get it off using wet paper towels.
It was really hard to see or feel and I only knew to look cos of reading posts about bad sheds. :cheers:
Luckily all is well now :)
Just need to work on improving the humidity for next time. It has been really cold here, and I have been leaving my central heating on 24 hours a day so as the snakes don't get too cold. Even with the UTH the tanks have got really cold overnight when the heating in the house is off. I think it has probably dried out the atmosphere a lot, and hopefully that's what caused the bad shed. It was not so cold outside when Odin shed, so the heating was only on morning and evening then-presumably the atmosphere was not so dry then.