Elderly Snakes, Care and Unique Health Issues

[d_virginiana]

Hm... I wouldn't worry about it for now so long as she's got somewhere she can soak if she wants and she's not acting differently. My old guy (15 years old) will look really dingy and get kind of a dry feel to his scales for a pretty long period before he sheds. Look for lateral folds where she bends; like, folds kind of going from the belly straight up toward the spine; those are a pretty clear marker of a retained shed.

There's always a lot of guesswork involved with my old one shedding because he has cataracts in both his eyes (completely blind) and it's pretty much impossible to use the eyes to tell when he's going blue. He has never had any problems shedding, but the timing of it and the state the skin gets to before a shed have changed quite a bit as he's gotten older.

[jitami]

Thank you. No folds... how long would you say is a 'pretty long period'? I've never seen any of mine get to this point or take this long to lose it.

[d_virginiana]

I've never really timed it, but it can be a couple weeks. Whenever I've actually had to deal with a retained shed there was no guesswork or anything; there was just a very different feel to it that's hard to put into words, but it was obvious the minute I picked up the snake that it had gone from 'about to shed' to 'retained shed'. In those instances I got the shed off with no problems, so it wasn't like it was too late or anything.

[jitami]

Thank you again. I'm pretty happy to say that in 13 years of having garters I've never had a retained shed, but I suppose there's a first for everything... I'll keep you posted.

[jitami]

And she shed today! Yay! Complete normal shed, just took a lot longer than normal for whatever reason.

[d_virginiana]

And she shed today! Yay! Complete normal shed, just took a lot longer than normal for whatever reason.