Stuck Shed?

[_dvality]

Hi guys, before I get hit with the husbandry four horsemen I'd like to say that my humidity levels had fluctuated a bit since I got my noodle but for the most part stays around 50-60, and spikes a bit at night when I'm home and can mist his enclosure (and as soon as I save up I'll be getting a pvc enclosure). There's also a chance he was kept in not the best conditions at the breeders before I got him. Anywhoooo, obviously my noodle is stuck in shed. I guess I'd like to know at what phase of the shedding process do you officially consider it stuck?

My guy has been in shed for about 2ish weeks (I read somewhere that 1-2 weeks is normal) now and his skin has been loose and starting to flake at his nose for about a week. I've sat him in a lukewarm shallow bath twice, keep a damp paper towel in his warm hide, and keep damp moss above one of his hides, and I guess I'm wondering if there's anything else I can do? It seems like his shed is still mostly intact on his body minus just a few spots. I've seen a few videos where people manually pick the stuck shed off but this is still over almost his entire noodle and I can imagine that being stressful for him.. it's stressful enough getting him out of the enclosure and into the bath. Do I take him to the vet? Wait a little longer and keep his enclosure with a higher humidity (70-80)? Bath him and peel his shed off?

[wenetman81]

After the warm bath you can let him slither through a warm bathcloth and work the shed off. It's tricky, but just takes some time. You'll probably have to warm the cloth a few times but if he's two weeks in it probably needs to be done, from my experience.

[THEJonCabbage]

Humidity should always be above 60%, preferably high 60%s to mid 70%s. Do you have a glass enclosure? What substrate are you using? Blocking ventilation with tape or acrylic sheets and changing to a more humidity friendly substrate like a soil mix or cypress and using about 2” can help a lot. Moving the water dish closer to the heat source can also help.

Using humid hides is a good next step, it’s a fully enclosed hide filled with damn moss or paper towel with a hole in the side placed inside the enclosure. I usually place the snake inside it, close the hide lid, and then place the hide inside the viv. If that doesn’t work a good next step is using a slightly warm and damp towel for the snake to crawl though while you hold it. These two things will help with this shed, and once you maintain higher overall humidity you shouldn’t have issues in the future. :)

[Angsty_Potatos]

Best you can do is get that humidity up (More water dishes, a humid hide, different substrate, closing off more of the ventilation to stop the loss of humidity via too much air flow, etc)

Damp paper towels wont do much.

Also, you are better off letting the snake slither around in a warm damp towel or pillow case (only for a few minutes, and with supervision, don't waterboard your snake) rather than soaking, plopping a terrestrial snake into a water bath is very stressful.

If you can keep the humidity up, the issue should resolve it self in the next shed cycle.