Retained Shed Indentication and Treatment

[guidofatherof5]

A snake with a retained shed usually exhibits some unique signs and behaviors.

1. Folds in the lateral skin. It sometimes looks "crinkly" on the sides and belly.
2. The snake will appear stiff and have trouble moving normally.
3. Breathing trouble-looks like it is taking deep breaths or trying to. It may also open its mouth during these times.
4. Time in a shed box seems to help (only because the humidity allows the skin to stretch much more easily)

If not caught and treated in time, I believe the snake can suffers organ damage from the restriction and lack of normal oxygen. So, even if the retained shed is removed the snake may not live long.

Removing a retained shed can be easy or very difficult. Placing the snake in a warm, humid shed box for 30 minutes will help. Getting the retained shed started is sometimes difficult. I start at the chin, upper lip, corner of the mouth or the cloaca/vent area. Once started you may have to continually wet the snake to keep the shed coming off. Using warm water is best. The most difficult cases may require holding the snake under running warm water. The force of the water will sometimes cause the edge to come up and make it easier to grab and remove. If the shed is started at the cloaca/vent you will have to shed the snake backward. Care should be taken when removing the eye caps.
In the most severe cases the shed only comes off in small pieces and can take hours to remove.
Retained sheds are a serious, life threatening situation and should not be taken lightly. This is especially true with snakes under 1 year old.

Prevention
This situation can be avoided in most cases if the humidity is kept in a good range (50%-60%). Using large water bowl will help increase the humidity and give the snake/s a place to soak before the shed.

Please feel free to add additional info, photos, videos, suggestion, observations and treatments.

[d_virginiana]

Is it common that old snakes can appear to have a retained shed, even if nothing is wrong? I've noticed that my oldest snake (12 years this last summer) exhibits some of those signs on a semi-regular basis. So this might be something to address for people with geriatric garters :)
I think a lot of it is due to older snakes having difficulty maintaining body weight. His skin tends to get 'wrinkly' and dry very quickly. Since his eyes have pronounced cataracts, it's hard to tell if there is a retained eye-cap or even when he 'goes blue'. He also has arthritis on his tail, and moves more stiffly than he did when he was younger.

It would be useful to see pictures of retained sheds and eyecaps. I'm glad this thread got started, because that's something I worry about fairly often with Houdini (and now my albino baby, as he's the only one who's ever actually had difficulty shedding).

[ConcinusMan]

Excellent post. I was thinking it was time for something like this.

[Light of Dae]

Here Is an example of a baby with retained shed.
7390

Here I had pulled her head piece off but left behind this...
7391

Getting going.
7392

I got everything off her and she was much happier.
7393

[paulh]

Please describe the sort of shedding box you use. I generally use a bare plastic box with water about half as high as the snake's body.

Water temperature is around 85 degrees Fahrenheit, if possible. If it feels warm to human skin, it is too hot for the snake.

Removing the retained eye caps may not be possible with small snakes. The eye caps are likely to come off normally with the next shed, especially if the snake is given a humid box. That's been my experience. I've heard of a cobra that built up a stack of 7 or 8 eyecaps before they were removed manually. The eye was undamaged.

[guidofatherof5]

Cs0Vqm2pP18

[ConcinusMan]

While the shed box helps by allowing water to soak in and get under the old skin (which helps it separate from the new skin underneath) most of the time you're still going to need to assist with getting the shed started. Once it's started I give the snake a chance to shed on it's own, and assist as needed with trouble spots.

[Steveo]

One of my milk snakes has a history of retained sheds. I put him in a tupperware with a damp rag and usually he'll crawl all over/under/through it for an hour or two and the shed comes off. Only once have I needed to physically remove some skin.

[ConcinusMan]

What type of milk snake is it? I've had people give me milks that had the same problem but within two sheds of getting them, the problem was gone. They tend to have problems when husbandry is less than perfect. Their skin gets thin and weak. But your case sounds like the snake just had trouble getting started. A shed box or moist hide with moss is recommended for kings/milks at shedding time.

Even if your snake can shed on it's own, it should be thick and strong, and come off in one piece. Always. Anything else is not normal and indicates a health or husbandry problem.

[Steveo]

Sinaloan. I keep the humidity around 50%, which is about the highest I can get in Denver with a glass tank and screen top. Once they grow just a little more I'll move them to a rack where I can get it up to 80% if necessary. The rack was built for royals and the milks are still able to wiggle through the gap right now.

His shedding problem comes and goes, so I make a point to check on him every day. Usually he can get the head done without much difficulty. Eye caps always come off. I think part of the problem is that he refuses to go in the water at all and he panics if I put him in water, hence the wet rag technique. When I first got him I'd hold the rag in my hand and make him squirm through it and the skin came off rather easily. I'm not sure if he's lazy or just defective :P His sister has never had a problem.

[d_virginiana]

It's good to know retained eye-caps aren't usually a huge problem. That's mainly what I worry about with my oldest one, since it's pretty much impossible to tell.

[ConcinusMan]

They can be. They can be very serious. They can cause blindness/loss of the eye/life threatening infection if the eye.

[d_virginiana]

They can be. They can be very serious. They can cause blindness/loss of the eye/life threatening infection if the eye.

Would they normally cause problems that bad between one shed and the next, or is that more if it builds up over several sheds like the cobra that was mentioned?
Any suggestions on how I could tell with a blind snake? His eyes, especially his left one, are very clouded by what appear to be cataracts, and are almost always 'murky' and dark looking. I try to find the eyecaps on every shed, but sometimes they're mangled too badly to tell. I always worry that something bad is going to happen if I miss one.

[ConcinusMan]

Once or twice retained shouldn't be a problem. It's only a problem if the snake (and the eye of course) continues to grow and the skin continuously fails to come off. It would be like putting a collar on a puppy, and failing to adjust it for a year.

[d_virginiana]

Sounds like something that would be a lot worse on a young snake.

[Artic Exotics]

They can be. They can be very serious. They can cause blindness/loss of the eye/life threatening infection if the eye.

I second this. You do not want to have to deal with this... 7579

This Amazon tree boa had extensive retained caps which lead to an infection and total blockage of the lacrimal duct. Without an open pathway into the infection antibiotic therapy failed. Surgical drainage of the eye was the only viable option as shown here. After initial improvement this poor creature lost the eye and sadly due to complications of losing the eye eventually passed.

Diagnosis and treatment for retained caps is easy enough for home herpers to do when caught early but that certainly doesn't mean it should be taken lightly. :)

[guidofatherof5]

I looked in on this Iowa albino (T-) maleT.radix - Plains Garter today and gave him a nice big night crawler. Not wanting to see a fight breakout I put him in a tub to finish his meal. Once in the tub I noticed some wrinkles in his skin which was a clear indication of a retained shed. There were no other indicators that he had a retained shed.
After 30 minutes in a warm shed box I did a manual shed on him. The shed came off with little trouble.

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//821/medium/retained_shed.jpg

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//821/medium/retained_shed1.jpg

[guidofatherof5]

I looked in on this Iowa albino (T-) maleT.radix - Plains Garter today and gave him a nice big night crawler. Not wanting to see a fight breakout I put him in a tub to finish his meal. Once in the tub I noticed some wrinkles in his skin which was a clear indication of a retained shed. There were no other indicators that he had a retained shed.
After 30 minutes in a warm shed box I did a manual shed on him. The shed came off with little trouble.

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//821/medium/retained_shed.jpg

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//821/medium/retained_shed1.jpg


Please feel free to ad any photo to this thread that might assist other keepers in identifying retained sheds.

[d_virginiana]

I'll try and get a picture up of Harley's skin while it still looks like it does (hard to capture on the camera). It looks almost exactly like that, despite the vet confirming that there is no trace of retained shed left on the body, except that it's the actual scales being bent it two, not one scale being too stiff and pushing the others out of place as it looks like in this picture. Before the shed was removed two months ago, it looked more like this.

Might be useful in helping people see some differences between retained shed and damaged skin from other causes. It's such a slight difference, but if I'd realized it a month ago I could've gotten the parasite treatment started before it got this bad instead of just thinking it was a complication from the retained shed.

[guidofatherof5]

I found that Speckle had some retained belly scales so I placed her in a nice warm shed box.
I posted this photo as an example of a working shed box. As you can see the water was warm so humidity formed on the sides.
Warm water really helps to soften up the old shed.

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//821/medium/shed_box_working.jpg

[guidofatherof5]

Bump

[ConcinusMan]

What's with the bumping? I mean, I get it and the bumping is worthy/justified but I really think many of these are worthy of "sticky" and/or care sheet archival. New/less knowledgeable/inexperienced members should be able to find this info easily and without posting a FAQ and waiting for spam clearance/replies. Just my opinion.

[jwolfe152]

how can someone get to the archived articles on the site? i just happened across them with a google search last night

[guidofatherof5]

how can someone get to the archived articles on the site? i just happened across them with a google search last night

You can do a search for what you're looking for, then look through the results. Or simply look through the threads under each thread heading (general talk, urgent care, husbandry, etc)

There was a software upgrade a couple years back and I think some article(threads) were lost. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

[jwolfe152]

this is the articles i was talking about i have not seen them elsewhere in search results

Index of /archive/articles (http://www.thamnophis.com/archive/articles/)

[guidofatherof5]

Can't say I know what that is.

[jwolfe152]

it has all kinds of papers and stuff i have not looked at all of them but a few of the articles are

The visual senses in Garter Snakes
Author: Martin Hallmen

Attitude of melanistic garter snakes
Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis

Some observations on stages of shedding
in juvenile melanistic Common Garter Snakes
Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
Author: Martin Hallmen 1997

The San Francisco Garter Snake
Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia
In Europe

Some behavioural studies about swallowing smelts
Osmerus eperlanus by melanistic Common Garter Snakes
Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis


© 1998 Martin Hallmen

[jwolfe152]

Thamnophis.com: Article Page (http://www.thamnophis.com/archive/articles/artice.htm)

here is a link to an old thamnophis page

Jürgen Chlebowy
Webmaster

[ConcinusMan]

There was a software upgrade a couple years back and I think some article(threads) were lost. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Yeah that sucks. especially the loss of the photographic library. I worked hard on parts of it.

[guidofatherof5]

I just found a young T. s. concinnus - Red-spotted Garter snake with a retailed shed. I was lucky to catch the problem as the only sign of trouble was vertical folds/wrinkles when she was coiled.
This incident brought home to me the importance of daily observations of your snakes.

[ConcinusMan]

You better be taking care of my babies. :mad:

;)

Yes, daily. That's the only way to know if they are due to shed but have missed it. if you don't notice a retained shed as soon as they start to "wrinkle" like that and act quickly, it can become too late to get it off then all you can do is euthanize or watch them die a slow miserable death from strangulation.

[guidofatherof5]

Bump