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Flakey Scales?

J

jcpotter

New member
Hi. I got my corn snake about 4 months ago and I've had a couple of odd symptoms with her recently.

Prior to her last shed (about 2 weeks ago) I noticed that the skin on individual scales started to flake. It was not all over her body but it was definitely noticeable. Initially I thought she might just be having a bad shed, so I soaked her a couple times and her shed came off fine in one piece. However, I have noticed in the past couple days that some of her scales have begun to flake skin again. It is very noticeable around her head and you can see her trying to rub up against things as if she is trying to shed. Another thing that concerns me is that some of her scales look almost shrived? This concerns me and I believe I will be taking her into the vet tomorrow but I wanted to see what you guys had to say.

Lastly something that she has done is you can noticeably hear her almost sigh. She would do this initially after and before shed so it seemed normal. However she is doing this again and I have begun to notice it every day. I'm not sure if this can be respiratory because I have seen no other symptoms from her.

She has not eaten in about 4 weeks due to most likely shed and mating season. However she drinks regularly and is active most of the time. Humidity is at 35 at the moment and temperature is usually mid to high eighties.

Help! I'm concerned for my girl!
 
Update. Just got back from the vet. He said that the humidity in the tank is too low for her (I live in Arizona and it is extremely dry here). Will be soaking her every other day and also changing to a different type of substrate (was using aspen before). The humidity causes all the problems I was seeing!
 
I a, having this problem right now but my corn snake wont eat as well as having flaky scales but another thing is her scales underneath are really messed up.Did your snake have this issue to because I could really use some help
 
Hi

Yeah she had scales where the skin was flaking and also some of her scales looked shrived. I live in AZ so there is no humidity in general. Where are you keeping your humidity? Also I soak her (per doctors orders) for about 15 min every other day in warm to the touch water. After doing this a couple days I noticed almost immediate improvement with the flaking scales. Also her "sneezing" has almost completely stopped.

I've been trying a couple of different methods to keep the humidity up but so far nothing has seemed to keep the humidity at a constant level. I can get it to spike for a bit to where I want it but still having troubles keeping it there. Let me know if you have any tips.

Yeah I would try soaking her/him every other day for like a week and see if you notice improvement. My vet recommended I soak Vera for another 2 months every other day or so.

Also Vera has had little to no appetite (has not eaten STILL in about a month). She did have a shed in that period and I've also been told it is breeding season so try not to worry. If she doesn't take to the food in then next week I am going to be concerned.
 
I just noticed this thread.
My corn is starting to have random, tiny flakey-looking scales. I am thinking she must be close to a shed.
However, the humidity is actually quite high! Most days it's over 55%, and today it is 85% - and there isn't much I can do about it. I use aspen shavings, and a 50W bulb (will be switching to UTH most likely), and a dehumidifier. But the air itself is 85% right now...

I'd just like to bump this thread to see if there are other suggestions as well!
 
Hi JC,

I am just down the road from you and I haven't had those problems with our snakes. We have received record rainfall off of this monsoon and we also use a swamp cooler--so that might have something to do with it. I hope Vera does well :)
 
Hello

I found the problem with Vera was that her humidity was too low, once I did bring this up the problem went away almost immediately and her sheds are almost always perfect!

I did this by first getting rid of her aspen shavings, those seem to destroy all humidity in her enclosure. They were replaced with ground up coconut husks, she loves to burrow in this and it keeps humidity in like CRAZY (but make sure that mold doesn't start to grow under water bowls or hides, I actually make a little mixture of the aspen and coconut underneath these areas to avoid this). After doing that her problem with her scales went away. I'm not quite sure what your issue could be though with the high humidity levels that you do have, honestly mine are usually not even that high unless I have just poured water into her enclosure.
 
jcpotter,
Thank you for your post. Our Joey had flaky scales a while ago and I never understood why. It cleared up completely after his next shed and hasn't repeated.
Our home here in Florida is very dry - the AC really takes the moisture out of the air. When Joey is getting ready to shed, I put one or two containers with moss (purchased in pet store) in the enclosure. It really helps. He has had consistently clean sheds and no sign of flaking.
 
I am having the same issue with my "coral" snow. I thought it would be a humidity related issue so i switched over to a uth and thermostat yesterday from the heat bulb. I bought a humidifier last week because my place was running 25%. I can now get it up to 35-45%. All 3 of my snakes shed fine but I'm thinking adding some moist moss to the cool hide may help also.
How do you guys/girls soak your snakes?
 
Hey Motley,
We've moved to California since that original post and we have a HUGE humidity problem now.

I had to soak Joey a couple of times before his last shed. I used a large shallow pot (about 2 inches deep) - I think it's called a sautee pan - anyway, I lined it with a small towel and filled it with room temperature water. I used a laser thermometer to check the temp. I lifted Joey out while he was still curled up and put him in the pot and covered him with the towel. He seemed to really like it. He drank a lot of water and just hung out there until I took him out. I did this every other day until he shed and I only had one occasion where he didn't want to go in the pan.
Our place is ridiculously dry - we're in high desert. Even with a humidifier, we can barely get the humidity above 30%, so I keep a damp towel on top of the cage and that helps to maintain the humidity inside the cage. We have to monitor it constantly though because if we wet the towel too much, it gets too humid and when the towel dries, the humidity plummets.
Hope this helps.
 
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