• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

A patchy shed on new corn

J

jonnywill

New member
Hi Guys,

I recently bought an 8 - 9 month female root beer corn (about 14" when bought, now about 16"). She feeds very well and "seems very happy" (from an observational perspective).

She recently began her first shed (about 2 weeks ago), which started with a slight clouding of the eyes, hiding, etc. But still hasn't fully shed and it seems to be coming off in pieces.

When the shedding behaviour first began we left her a couple of days then fed her, and she took the food fine. However this seemed to almost split the old layer of skin around her mid-section (which thankfully doesn't appear to have caused any damage to the scales underneath.

She does appear to have grown very quickly while in her new home, and I'm not sure if this has caused the problems with this shed. She (for about the last week) has had access to a large water bowl, a hide containing damp moss and a rough(ish) rock to rub against which has improved the situation slightly, but it still seems like far too long to leave her to try shed naturally. She still seems happy to be handled, but rubs her self on the creases in my jeans as if trying to loosen the skin... Any suggestions? Bath, damp towel, etc?

Thanks in advance
 
I don't have any direct experience with this, but I have read on this site that you can dampen a towel and let the snake slither through it to help loosen any stuck shed. Maybe you could even hold the damp towel in your hand while you handle her and "make" her work her way through it. Good luck with your lady!
 
Cheers Karoni, I was just concerned with her being quite young, but I will give it a go and just keep the water level to a minimum :)
 
This worked very well for me , my new corn had a small patch of skin stuck on and the damp towel had it off in about 5-10 mins
 
I keep a dish cloth I knitted handy, and if any of mine have a problem I wet down the dish cloth, take the snake out and hold the cloth firmly around the snake so it has to slither through. The snake usually starts to do that weird movement they do when they are shedding, not sure how to describe it! They usually get any skin off after a few passes, and do seem to appreciate the help! Plus it's very rewarding for the human, too!
 
There's a sticky at the top of this forum with a method to help remove an incomplete shed, too.
 
Hi Nanci,

I had a look through your post and it was really useful. Don't think she was too happy being abandoned in a wet tank :) but it seems to have remove a few more bits of old skin. My main concern was that she hadn't shed her head area and managed to remove the eye scales, as it's been hard to tell with the shed being so bitty. I think she may have managed it but will keep a close eye on her over the next few days to make sure she isn't showing any strange signs :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top