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Health Issues/Feeding Problems Anything related to general or specific health problems. Issues having to do with feeding problems or tips.

Possible scale damage
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Old 04-18-2018, 11:04 PM   #1
Nicholas
Possible scale damage

Hey everyone!

This is my first post here, however I've been lurking a ton and learning a lot!

I'm concerned that my snakes skin/scales could have been damaged. Last Wednesday (4/11) I noticed my snakes eyes had gone cloudy. He is a snow corn snake, so it's hard to tell with his red eyes but I knew they looked different. His first shed, I was so excited! After a few days he was returning to his normal look, and I noticed something odd just a bit below his head, it looked like his skin was flaking. I figured this was just his shed separating and coming off and he had rubbed it onto something.

Well, this morning I woke up to find a *nearly* complete shed. The part from his head is complete with eye caps, and the shed from the rest of his body stayed together, where they separated was by the area where his skin had been flaking - not too unexpected. However, his scales still look slightly flaky/damaged.

I believe I've uploaded this pictures correctly... If not I'll try to fix it and get them working ASAP. Bonus picture of little Alfredo enjoying his vines

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Old 04-18-2018, 11:11 PM   #2
Nicholas
Some background in case it will help:

We picked Alfredo up 3/26, he is believed to have been born around a month prior to that. We're not sure that he's actually a male, however we just went with it because we're in general not too concerned about the sex of the snake.

He's been doing well since home, feeding pretty happily on pinkies ~5 days. When he went blue we went ahead and offered food according to his regular schedule, however he struck at it and missed a couple times and we figured he couldn't see, was having a hard time, and we'd wait until he sheds. This evening we fed him, he didn't strike it hard like he normally does, instead just lightly took it from the feeding tongs and brought it in to eat. I would think this is because he hasn't eaten in almost two weeks and probably is pretty exhausted from shedding. However I would like to rule out the possibility that this scale damage is causing him to be not as aggressive of an eater.

I lightly touched the area in question and he didn't seem more upset about it than he normally would when I go that close to his head. It also isn't visibly draining or swollen. This is the only area on him that looks like this.

One concern I had was that when it first appeared there was some substrate that looked like it was almost stuck to it. When I picked him up it came off pretty easily, however I am concerned that maybe it was caused by a splinter from a wood chip while he was rubbing his shedding skin. I'm currently using forest floor cypress mulch, and some of the chips seem a bit sharp when they dry out. Let me know if you think that is a possibility.

I'm sorry for the massive wall of text this likely will all be, however I just want the best for my first scale baby and want as much information out there as possible. Thanks for your time and help!
 
Old 04-19-2018, 11:14 AM   #3
Jenn-675
To me it looks like it was just an incomplete shed, but I can not tell too well front the pictures. Something similar happended to my male when my humidity was too low. What I did was got some mite treatment(nd treated him just Incase) and some shed helper. The next shed it was gone.
 
Old 04-19-2018, 12:04 PM   #4
Nicholas
The pictures aren't the greatest, I only have my phone for a camera. Also he tends to move around quite a bit once the camera starts to focus in on him well.

As for an incomplete shed I was worried about that initially when I saw it flaking. I put in some sphagnum moss for him and he loved it, spent most of the time there until he shed. When I found his shed I went ahead and removed that. This area appears deeper than his scales though. And it is peeling away from the area in question. Would an incomplete shed look like that?

The more time passes I'm figuring it was just some slight damage he did to himself while rubbing against something and it'll clear up with his next shed. I'm likely just worrying myself over nothing.

Thanks!
 
Old 04-19-2018, 12:07 PM   #5
Dragonling
Without seeing it in person I can't be sure if it's a strip of stuck shed or if a portion of the next layer of epidermis may have been peeled back prematurely, possibly from the snake pulling too hard in his attempts to remove the sloughing skin. If it's just a bit of shed that's stuck, allowing the snake to crawl through a dampened paper towel or cloth may help remove it.

If it's instead an injury, it should heal on its own in time, just make sure to maintain clean bedding and water. If you determine it's an injury, you can apply a small amount of triple antibiotic ointment (the kind WITHOUT pain reliever) to the site daily to help prevent infection.
 

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