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feeding during shed

T

tyretosmom

New member
Hello all-
Don't know if any of you remember me but I used to post about 1 year ago. Anyways I still have my two snakes both very healthy a much bigger. They are good eaters and never turn down food, which brings me to my question. My husband feed them two mice. Which looked a little big to me but my snakes had already started on them by the time I looked. They were both in blue phase and when they shed it was very bad! It took us a couple days to help them shed the rest. This may seem like a stupid question but do you think feeding them a big meal had anything to do with the bad shed?
Jaimee
 
No, more than likely it had to due with low humidity, which is rather common during the winter months! Your house heater tends to suck up all the moisture in the air, thus causing bad sheds.

This can easily be avoided a number of ways. Easiest is to add a moist hide when you first see them go into the "blue" phase.

If you miss the "blue" phase, which many do, including myself. You can still do several things. Wet down a small hand towel or even several paper towels with warm water and ring them out good. Then let the snake crawl through repeatedly. Generally this will rehydrate the dead skin enough for the snake to slough it off rather quickly.

If all else fails, a nice warm soak for a few minutes and you may have to help a bit removing the remaining skin.

Good luck!
 
I've also had a problem recently with incomplete sheds. Though my hygrometer reads almost 65%, the last time this week that my normal and butter mot female shed, both were incomplete. The normal ate more than usual after I assisted her with all but a 1" spot on her tail I missed so I'm waiting for her to digest and put damp paper towels in her hide. The butter mot female, though, even after removing all of her shed two days ago, still refuses to eat. She is roaming the tank endlessly in the evenings like they do when they are hungry, but wont eat anything. I'm getting frustrated and worried. The rest of the gang are scheduled to feed on Sun. so I'm going to wait til then and try her again unless anyone has any other suggestions. They all feed in a separate container. :shrugs:
 
I agree with Quigs, some of my snakes will eat normally all throught the shedding process, others will not touch food until a few days after it's all finished. The humidity plays a more important factor, I think it's been a bit tricky since the change to winter weather (indoor heat, etc.)
good luck!
:cheers:
 
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