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Is this normal for a snake in blue? Wrinkled skin on head?

R

rmnypt

New member
Hello, I went to clean out our snake aquariums yesterday and noticed my Daughters corn is in blue right now. I'm used to the signs of her being in blue, but the skin on about half of the top of her face looks pretty wrinkled/bubbly right now. I spoke with a gentleman at our local reptile/aquatic store (not a franchise, but a small business) and he said she might just need to be soaked. I put her in a critter keeper with about 1/2" of lukewarm water for about 30 minutes and she moved around quite a bit in the water but not really her face at all. She's a climber so she pretty much climbed around the lip of the critter keeper like she does in her aquarium trying to escape. Between my Son's and Daughter corns we've not run into this before or it could be that I just didn't notice and it's normal. She is in 10 gallon right now (but will be moving to a 20 long soon) with bottom heater and Ranco thermostat set to 85. I went ahead and put some moist moss in her hide for her. Is this wrinkly spot on the top of her head normal? Is there something else I should be doing? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

I'll try to get a picture if possible later but she's a fast mover so I'm not holding my breath that I'll get one that shows what I'm talking about. In the meantime I would love to hear what others have to say.
 
Sounds to me like a retained shed. I had some garter babies last year decide they wanted to do that. Best thing is to run slight warm water over them, holding them like your giving it a shower. Over time you might be able to use your fingers and rub the skin to hopefully get a loose part to be able to start it. Obviously starting at the head.

My apologys if I've worded any of that wrong, I dislike typing on my phone, I think and type quicker then words come up.
 
Thanks for the reply. She's shed pretty easily since we go her and I'm very thorough and make sure that every peice of her shed is accounted for so including eye caps tip of tail and everything in between. I got a decent picture of her head so I hope this helps in diagnosing her. Her tank seems to be pretty safe. Just the glass aquarium itsef, a faux rock hide and 2 store bought and baked wood hides with aspen bedding and other than that the lid with a rubber seal (no sticky adhesive) and locking clips to hold it in place so If she go injured I'm not sure how. . . any thoughts.

snakey2.JPG

She was in full blue yesterday but eyes are pretty much back to normal today if that matters.

If the picture doesn't show up for some reason please feel free to tell me how to go about doing it correctly.

Thanks Again
Becky
 
Well if she was blue and has just gone clear, then she's about to shed at any minute! The problem should be resolving itself shortly.

If I'm honest, I can't see anything wrong in the pic above.
 
bitsy said:
Well if she was blue and has just gone clear, then she's about to shed at any minute! The problem should be resolving itself shortly.

If I'm honest, I can't see anything wrong in the pic above.
Click to expand...

I second that. Usually they take a week or so (don't quote me) to fully shed from start to finish, maybe 10 days at most. But from experience from complete blue to shed is usually anywhere from 2-4 days. My 2010 Anery boy was blue Friday I believe, and hasn't shed yet, he will probably shed tonight or tomorrow at some point.
 
Thanks for the replies. So really no cause for concern over the dry shriveled spot on her head? I've just never seen that happen to her before.

Becky
 
Whatever you do, do not try to remove it... Bandit, my Anery corn had something similar, so I thought I would soak him and help him out... It was a very bad idea, he no longer has that scale... It was the first time I had run into a problem like that and I did a very stupid thing... He didn't bleed or anything, his scale just came off... Now the poor guy is bald...
 
you just help, you don't force anything, rub dont pull. And you only help get it started, from there the snake should be able to finish the matter.
 
HazAnga said:
you just help, you don't force anything, rub dont pull. And you only help get it started, from there the snake should be able to finish the matter.
Click to expand...

I did exactly the opposite of just helping... I tried to pull it off, got the whole thing. Personally I would just leave it alone, knowing what could happen, if it is just a stuck scale, I believe that it will just come off with the next shed, but I could be wrong. I am still quite new to snake keeping. My specialty used to be Red Eared Sliders.
 
With a shed seemingly imminent, I'd leave it well alone. You risk tearing off the shedding skin underneath, too early.

There's a very good chance the natural shed process will sort the issue out anyway.
 
Thanks to everyone for the replies. I'll just wait it out as suggested and I'll be sure to post a picture of her post shed.

Thanks Again
 
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