"eye caps"

Hi guys,

I'm wondering, everyone says, "make sure the shed is complete"

My question is this; "Is it obvious"?... "if the eye caps don't shed"?

This is SneakySnake's third shed, all looks good, but I'm not really sure what what I'm looking for.

Thanks to all!complete

The easiest way to check if the eyecaps shed is to look at the shed skin. The eyecaps look like two round scales.

Terri, Hi, nice to see you again, I guess I didn't ask the question too clearly, sorry. What I want to know is, if the "eye caps" were still on the snake, can you tell? Will the eyes be cloudy, or look bigger, or what? Thanks!

The eyes look pretty normal; they are not cloudy and do not look bigger. That's why Terri wrote that the easiest way to tell is to check the shed skin. All you might see on the snake is a tiny scrap of old skin still attached at the eye. And the skin might be torn off close enough to the head that you couldn't even see that.

You can definitely tell if there are several layers of old scales. The eyes look milky and dried. I have seen a Ball Python that was mostly blind because the owner had failed to take action regarding the eye caps.

Always check the shed for tail tips and eye caps.

Hello again

It's another story if the eye caps remain on through more than one shed. You may start getting some cloudiness or it may look like the eyes are bulging.

Retained eye caps can damage the eyes. We treated a ball python for retained eye caps, and his eye was permanently damaged. He had several layers of eye caps on. After we finally got the eye caps off, one of his eye's had a sort of sunken look about it, and it was also scarred. That was a couple of years ago. I saw him again a couple of months ago, and his eye still looks the same.

The easiest way to check is to make yourself get into the habit of simply looking at the shed skin. Otherwise, you may not realize that there is a problem until it is too late.

Thanks Guys, One more question, Say on one shed, you don't see the "eye caps", but on the next shed, they are obviously there, can you then assume that all is well? Sorry to be a pain, just a nervous new owner.

I would say that, yes, you could assume that all is well if you have that scenario.

if the eye caps are missing on a skin shed, how can u get them off the snake without hurting them?

The Cornsnake Manual tells you how to do it using a pair of tweezers, or starting it with your fingernail. Snakes eyes are tougher than ours because having no eyelids, they have to be able to go thru bushes and such.