Flaky scales?

[s.gullett]

Well to start off i was given the Cornsnake at the beginning of Sept. due to a friend moving and couldnt take her with them.

shes about 5ft and was told roughly 2yrs.
I've honelstly never realy been around snakes. so not to familiar with them. i live in a part of michigan thats not close to anything and the closest vet is about an hour away, and does not have a reptile specialist. so i would have to drive almost 3hours to one.
i looked through the forums but having satalite makes searching a bit of tedious and very time consuming.

Well as i said i got her around the start of Sept. she's ate about once a week and stoped when she was going to shed.
she shed about 3weeks ago. starting around an inch from the bottom of her head, about 2inchs total are some scales that look "flaky". its the ends of the scales. she also has some that are doing it though the rest of her body but its only maybe a total of 10 or 11 scales.
shes has also been extremely active throughout most of the day and night. almost like she was hungary. i have tried feeding her but she just ignores the mice.

temp is around 85 and teh humid. gage she keeps tearing off the side of the viv. its a 50gal. breeder tank. she has her hide water bowl and about 2inchs of aspen bedding. i have a heat pad under one side of teh tank and a light.
i have a rather large peice of bark in there. i had some plants and sticks but she wouldnt even go near them.

on the recomendation of a petstore i stoped buying live mice and am currently trying to switch her to frozen.(mites/mice harming her)

im sorry if i havent explained anything right. im open to suggestions.
please tell me what you think. if i need to do anything/change anything.

how would i be able to find out the sex of the snake.
i appologize for spelling and forgotten info. im somewhat in a hurry trying to get my son ready for trick or treating.

[Stars]

I can make a few suggestions, but can't answer your main question.

Extra lighting is not recommended for corn snakes.

You need hides on both the warm and cold sides.

The cold side should be between 72-77f (you didn't mention the temp). 85 is great for the warm side.

Yes, you should switch to frozen, someone else can give you techniques for how to do that.

To determine the gender, you can research 'popping' and 'probing'. These two techniques aren't really for beginners in the field though. A vet can do it if you don't feel confident to. If you do it wrong, you can hurt the snake.

Snakes are quite susceptible to disease so anything you have or will put in the tank (bark, rocks, etc) needs to be properly cured.

Can't help you about the scales, sorry. Probably results from a 'bad shed' (her last one), which can be fixed easily. Someone else can help you with this as I'm not sure.

[Stars]

Well no one's replying, so here's a link to a GREAT tutorial (with pictures) by Nanci about how to fix an incomplete shed: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56170

If your snake's 'flakes' look like the ones in the first picture on that snake, then it's probably an incomplete shed.

Either way, I would do what tutorial says anyway. Should solve your problem.

[Nanci]

In a 50 gallon tank she might appreciate a few hides, a water bowl big enough to get into, and some scrunchy vines laid along the back. MAYBE a reptile hammock. I have several snakes that love hammocks.

It shouldn't be very hard at all to get her to switch to FT. Just make sure the mouse is HOT, (not warm) and it doesn't hurt to dry the fur or to cut a few slits in the mouse's back the first few times.

If she's five feet long, she's probably older than two years. Maybe something like four or five. That's a very big corn.