Bredli hasn't shed properly.

[underunden]

Last Night my Bredli shed, and she seemed to be doing fine, so i left her to her business.
I checked on her this morning, and she hasn't been able to remove the old skin from about 3/4 of the way down her body, to the tip of her tail.
I put her in a luke-warm bath, and got her to soak for about 10 mins and i tried to assist the removal of the skin by running my hand down the length of her. The skin would not move, but it did soften.
I don't know what to do to help her to get this remaining skin off. She has rough surfaces in her cage, a water bowl, and a relativley good humidity level. So i just don't know what went wrong this time. She has never had a bad shedding history. =S.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! thank-you in advance!

p.s- I began trying to peel the old skin off very gently around her cloaca area, and i think the new scales may have gotten torn a little, or perhaps the protective layer of these new scales came off as i peeled off the dead skin, because the dead scales that i removed seemed to have a milky-white colour to them, and none of the others did... unless this is normal around the cloaca region? i'm really worried that i may have hurt her. =S

 

[pythrulz]

Sometimes snakes just have bad sheds doesnt mean you did anything wrong try not to peel off the old skin around sensitive areas I have myselg from the end of the tail you can try pasing your bredli through a damp teas towel several times Two of my coastals have bad sheds when I notice there about to shed I lightly spray them with water often see them taking a bath in there water bowl too.If your worried just keep him.her in a clean area and keep an check the area

 

[Snakelove]

You have to try and get it off as soon as possible. It's not good if you leave it. I had to get my spotted to the vet coz her last 2cm of her tail was dead because of the lack of blood tightening around the retained shed and it had to get cut off. So I suggest you do it soon.

 

[suzpect]

try having her in warm water for 20min to soften that bit more n hold her in a towel n let her sliither her way out and the skin should come i found it works with the towel and soak for 20min

gl
nathan

 

[underunden]

Thankyou everyone. I will try the teatowel and bathing method, and if this does not work, i'll get her to a vet ASAP.

 

[J-A-X]

i find a warm soak and a damp handtowel /flannel worked better than a teatowel encircle the part where the shed is retained and apply gentle pressure so she is rubbing against it as she slithers out....

 

[underunden]

i Just tried the damp teatowel method, and se did not like this at all. She was scared, and started thrashing around to try and escape. I was restraining her gently, so she bit me. She had enough so i put her back in her enclosure. I'm really worried about her now, as her shed was 3 days ago. How long is it safe to have remaining scales encircling the tail for? That is what i am most worried about, the lack of blood circulation. I think i will try the flannel next, as it has a rougher surface. the teatowel didn't do much. It removed a few scales from her upper abdomen, but none from her tail.

 

[J-A-X]

if she is thrashing then you are holding her too tight, you dont need to restrain as such, and maybe have too much of her in the towel,
the 'trick' is to soak only the retained shed part of her tail in luke warm water for as long as she will allow, and then use the damp flannel around her tail,not her whole body, with minimum pressure,and let her crawl out of it, it may take a few soaks and gentle pressure on the flannel, but you should get there, set aside a good hour and a half if she will allow you to handle her that long, you only need as much pressure as you would put on yourself if you had sunburn, its the roughness of the towel that does the job, not the pressure you apply.


you should never pull retained shed off once it has dried, you need to get onto it as soon as you realise your animal has shed, check the shed for eyecaps (spectacles) and tail tips, (if its rolled, you can dunk it in warm water and gradually unroll it, repeat the dunking as needed, and wear a peg, it doesnt smell pleasant when wet) then visually double check the animal for any patches that have been retained, they quicker you act the easier it is.

 

[Zoltag]

A method I have used quite successfully is to wet a pillow case with warm water, pop your python in and leave it for 20 mins or so.

 

[J-A-X]

... just keep it out of any drafts, it will chill your snake quickly . but don't give additional heat, you'll wind up steaming the poor thing but it will give a similar result to my suggestion if you feel you are stressing her too much with handling her,

 

[underunden]

Jaxrtfm... What do you mean when you say:
"and tail tips, (if its rolled, you can dunk it in warm water and gradually unroll it, repeat the dunking as needed, and wear a peg, it doesnt smell pleasant when wet)"??
I tried the pillowcase trick, it didn't do very much at all. I will try again tomorrow with the flannel method, as i decided to give her a rest today, as she was frustrated because of yesterday.
Thanks all =]

 

[J-A-X]

I was talking there about the skin that she has already shed, check it ASAP, to make sure she has shed the eyecaps and tail tips, if either are missing then you need to get her out asap and check if it is stil on her, or floating around in her enclosure or waterbowl, but quite often when they shed they seem to 'roll it up' from the head end and its not easy to check the eyes, so you need to unroll it (hence the description of dunk, unroll, dunk unroll) sorry if that has confused you:

when you try again, get a jug / dish / bowl of warm water and handle her like you would at any other time but try and lay her tail (repeatedly if she doesn't keep it in there) into the water and give it a soak to the best of your ability, dont force her tail in, just handle her normally and put her in a position where the tail ends up in the water, after a while, when the tail has had a really good dose of water the use the damp flannel and encircle her tail, apply gentle pressure and let her slither out of it, if you use too much pressure she will start to freak out, (they dont like their tails being played with, its a really good way to get the to move off a branch, ) so lots of soaking will help immensely,

Jax

 

[underunden]

Oh right... thanks JAX. i was confused about the curled up tail tip. her eye caps are off, but the tail tip is still on her. I will go and soak her tail right now, then gently encircle the damp flannel around her tail. I hope this works!! *fingers crossed*

 

[J-A-X]

Think sunburn when you apply the pressure, you only need enough for the flannel to make contact with her, not so much that she feels as though she is being threatened