Hello!
I’m a first time breeder, and this year I welcomed a couple of beautiful clutches. I have some experience with bad sheds etc since I rescued a couple of cresties in the past but I am currently at a loss.
One of the babies, currently 2 months old, has a lot of stuck shed on his toes/legs. A while back i first noticed it. It was combined with some dried up diet (he loves walking through it apperently). I figured he struggled to shed because of the dried up food. I gave him a soak and managed to get most of (or atleast so I thought).
Then it happend again when his next shed was due. Apperently I didn’t get everything properly around his tail/toes. I have soaked him multiple times now, but on some toes there are 2/3 layers of shed/pangea and I cannot get them off.
Mostly because he’s very fiesty, he bites, and shakes his tail, and won’t sit still. And he is soo incredibly tiny. Even with lot of patience, multiple soaks, and sessions of trying to pry every piece of I have made very little progress and I fear for necrosis. The shed simply won’t let go with just water.
Is there anything else I can do to help the little guy? Maybe specific liquids that will help his shed come of more easy than water? I’m not sure what would be safe to use. I also try to keep the sessions short to reduce potentially fatal stress.
I’ll take him to the vet if I have to, but I’m hoping to try some at home remedies first.
As for the cause of the struggle with shedding: I don’t know. All my baby’s get misted almost daily and there humidity should be up to par. He’s the only one of the 10 that I have that is struggling right now. They’re all in identical tubs with papertowels and fake plants, get the same food (pangea, breeding).
In my experience some babies just have a harder time than others, and, like you’ve experienced, once there’s a couple of layers, it only gets harder. In my experience, soaks, wet q-tips, tweezers and patience is the way to go. I know zoomed and other reptile brands make something called shed aid, but i dont have any experience with it.
But to double check, is he eating properly? does he have access to water? what are the temps like? and do you make sure to let the tub dry out between mistings? Since he’s the only one, id be inclined to believe that he had a bad first shed that then made the subsequent ones harder, but it could also be that there’s actually something that could be improved on, and the others were just lucky.
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This is a common issue I see. @empyrean you need to get a reading of that hatchling’s enclosure…
Their ambient humidity should be 65-70% and it should only spike higher after mistings, there needs to be a 10-12 hour buffer between mistings to allow the humidity to go back down to the range I mentioned.
Too much humidity can have the opposite effect to what you may expect and make sheds just as difficult to as if it were too dry.
If the enclosure is not getting back down to that range the ventilation is poor and adjustments to their housing need to be made.
If they are too dry I reccomend swapping out the paper towel for actual substrate like coconut fiber, paper towel is imo terrible for holding any kind of humidity as it needs to be constantly damp to have an effect, which is a risk for mold.
The only time I ever personally use paper towels is for day-old hatchlings that still have some umbilical material left to absorb or animals in QT to monitor their poop and look out for mites.
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As for the baby getting food on their feet, how big is their food dish? For hatchlings I use water bottle caps to decrease the chance they’ll just walk through it and get it all over themselves. How big are their enclosures? If they are too small that they are constantly able to walk over their food dishes without more space to go elsewhere that could be an issue.
If all other parameters are good, there may be an issue with the hatchling itself. Their lymphatic system is responsible for their shed cycles and producing the necessary enzymes and fluids for skin separation to occur. But again I’d reccomend troubleshooting their care before assuming this.