Problem... prego shed issue.

**bkhuff1s** · 05-24-2011, 02:48 PM

My large pregnant blue Puget Sound female, didn't shed the second half of her skin last time (last Wednesday). I wasn't to worried about it, it's happened before. She usually gets it off within a week. Well today I noticed her bottom part near her cloaca was upside down which was strange, so I went in for another look. Upon taking a closer look I noticed that she seemed to a mass near the cloaca, and after pulling her out it looked like she passed stool but it didn't make it past the second skin. I immediately pulled her out and put her in about half an inch of water in a second container. I pulled all of her excess skin off and looked at it. She was a little squirmy but was limp when I messed with her second half of her body. After letting her soak I was able to pull a Q-tip sized solid rock out of her cloaca, and it wasn't closing. I also felt where the babies were and could feel them moving, at least that's what it felt like.

**bkhuff1s** · 05-24-2011, 02:50 PM

There seems to be a space between were the babies are and her cloaca, which feels like compacted stool. It's stiff here. She doesn't seem to mind me massaging this part of her body...

**Stefan-A** · 05-24-2011, 02:57 PM

Vet.

**bkhuff1s** · 05-24-2011, 02:59 PM

I could be an attempted birth to, it's around that time.

**BLUESIRTALIS** · 05-24-2011, 03:06 PM

When a gravid/pregnant snake retains a shed in the later stages of pregnancy it can cause damage to the babies and mother. Her skin is already stretched to the max with all those babies inside and the old skin is like an ace bandage constantly putting pressure on the snake and babies it's like wearing a sock when your ankle is swelling. It's good that you got the old skin off, but now does she have feeling in the bottom half at all. Sounds like she may have a slug / jelly bean lodge and is impacted. You need to continue at this point soaking her in water and maybe she will work it out. I hope she will be just fine, but like stefan said you might need to see a vet.

**bkhuff1s** · 05-24-2011, 04:42 PM

Took her to the vet, and she become unresponsive on the way. She would suddenly take gulps of air occasionally. The vet said that it she smelled like an infection. The vet suggested attempting to take out the babies, which I accepted since she was completely unresponsive and not breathing. They pulled 10 plus babies out of her all of which completely reeked. They were nearly fully developed, but looked partially decomposed, she showed me some of them. Her thought was that this was what the infection was coming from, the complications with the babies. She also said that the shed shouldn't have caused this type of decomposition, and that she was most likely having complications before she shed, otherwise she should have spent more time getting it off. This sucks. I'm not sure I want to breed anymore. At least for a while.