My corn has been showing very feint signs this week of sheding soon. I thought it may have been just a full belly making her body look a bit duller, BUT...today she looks 100% like she's gonna shed. Her whole body is dull and her eyes are starting to get cloudy.

1) Today is her time to be fed, and due to scheduling conflicts for future feedings, I really wanted to feed her today. Is it ok to offer her food, or is it better to skip the feeding? Will it be harder to shed on a full belly?

2) I've lightly dampened her aspen shavings substrate to raise the humidity in the Viv...How damp should I keep the Viv (with or without a hygrometer)?

3) I picked her up and offered to place her into a water dish. She drank a small amount of the water, but she had no desire to soak. Should I fix a plastic tub with a warm moist paper towel?

4) How long should I expect this to take for a roughly 4-5 month old snake?

5) Last in importance, but I would like to know if there are any strategies for keeping the skin as whole as possible? My son would LOVE a snake skin for show and tell.

1) I don't worry about it. If she dosen't take well then offer her a new one after she sheds

2) Once again don't worry I don't even do that and she has never had a bad shed

3) You can but it isn't neccesary

4) approx. a week, the day it will shed the eyes clear up but the belly stays blurry

5) As long as it is healthy the shed should be whole. I guess if you really want to make sure then you can buy shed aid.

1. Just as Herp_Kid said....dont worry about it. I feed my corn snakes when they are going through a shed and they never refuse. If they dont eat it. Just wait a day or two.

2. I dont even bother doing that and mine usually shed as a whole. If not, some damp paper towels and letting the snake slide through your hands while applying gentle pressure never fails.

3. I did the same thing at first. Then soon realized my snakes absolutely hate soaking in the water. So I dont force them.

4. Usually takes about a week to complete the shedding process. A day or two after their eyes turn back to normal, they usually shed.

5. I honestly just leave mine alone, let them do their thing and they always shed as a whole lately. Even my 4'2" adult. I teach 2nd grade so I give the sheds to the kids. They love it.

Cool...thanks for the info. It's been kinda cold and dry around eastern NC lately, so I'll just keep monitoring the temps and sprinkle a bit of water to keep humidity anything but super dry. I offered food, but Skittle refused, so I let her be ( I have several pinkies to waste anyway). I'm letting her do her own thing today, and I'll offer her food again tonight. I"ll keep watch on her eyes turning back to normal.

JameyF-on a side note. Where in eastern NC are you located? I'm in Wilmington-and it is cray weather as always around here.
Humidity is never really an issue with us-we make sure his water bowl is full (of course, not full enough to drown him) and we'll see that all the substrate is pushed around right around the bowl when he's shedding. Just make sure to check his body to see that he shed properly the first time. Look on the shed and make sure you see eyecaps, too.

Update...Skittle turned food down on Saturday and Sunday. She spit up on Sunday (a week since her last feed). That's got me kinda nervous. She had a funky poop too (moist and lighter than her past dark solid). She's been eating only F/T food since at least november, and tap water with no additives. There are no signs of mites or other parasites. I've given up on feeding her before her shed, so she'll just miss this feeding. She's eaten well the previous couple of weeks, so I'm not worried about that.

I took the occasion Sunday to clean EVERYTHING in her Viv. She's drinking water ok, but she hasn't taken the occasion to soak. She hasn't had any more signs of spitting up or upset stomach. I'm thinking it was stress, so I'm limiting contact with her. Her eyecaps are back to normal, but she doens't seem to be able to see as well as she did last week. Also, her scales aren't quite as pale as they were. I'm expecting/hoping she'll shed soon, but nothing yet.

BTW I'm a couple hours west of you. I went to school in Wilmington, so I know the weather well there.

Most of the time, well all the time, my snake will refuse to soak. She will drink but hates to soak. If I was you I'd be more concerned with the regurge than the shed.

I am.

Here's the rundown on how to help a snake recover from a regurge:

Wait AT LEAST 14 days before offering food.

Why? regurgitation is INCREDIBLY hard on a snake's digestive system, especially when they are that small. They need plenty of time to heal before you offer another meal. Continue to offer fresh water for this entire period.

In the meantime, keep watch for fresh feces. Collect the sample (if it's still moist) and take it in for fecal testing at your veterinarian's office. Light, loose stools can mean parasites, which you will want to begin treatment for IMMEDIATELY. There is NO time to waste, with a small snake. A heavy parasite load will stress your snake out to the point where it will become anorexic (which in veterinary terms means it refuses food, not like anorexia nervosa for us humans) and small snakes don't have much fat stored up to live off of.

After the 14 days have passed, take the SMALLEST pinky you can find, and cut it in half (it's cleaner to do this while it's still frozen. I cut mine in half right at the 'ribcage' area, but some people do it lengthwise. I've just found this to be too messy, come feeding time). Thaw it well, and offer it to the snake. If the snake eats the half pinky, wait 10 days and offer the other half. If the snake regurges, start the cycle over and wait 14 days before offering the food.

Why cut the pinkie in half, and why wait so long? You want to give the snake ample time to heal, and starting off with a small meal will ensure that the snake's digestive system is working properly, more or less. You want to wait 10 days after this feeding to give the snake additional healing time, plus you want to make sure that it has fully digested the meal before offering it something else.

Try and save the stool, if any is passed. Your vet will probably want to do a second fecal, to make sure the snake is clear of parasites at this point (if you had to treat it in the first place).

If it successfully keeps down the second half-pinky, in 10 days feed it the smallest whole pinky you can find. If it has kept this down after 10 days, you can decrease the time between feedings to 7 days, but keep the food items small for 4-5 feedings. If it is doing fine at this point, you can increase the frequency of feedings to every 5 days, or increase the size of the feeder mouse and continue with a 7-day feeding schedule.

Sorry for the book, but I've had to rehab several snakes after regurges, and this is the method that always works for me. The most important point, the one I cannot stress enough, is DON'T RUSH IT! Your snake won't die of starvation, and what you are trying to prevent is another regurge. Baby snakes, especially baby corns, that get into a regurge cycle are very hard to rehabilitate, so you want to take every possible step to keep the snake from regurgitating again.

If you have ANY questions, PLEASE, PLEASE PM me, and keep us all updated!

Thanks for the info. I, of course, can't rule anything out for sure, but I don't suspect parasites at this point. This is the only pet I have had in the house, all food has been F/T and water has been chlorinated city water with nothing added. Based on your suggestion and others I've read, I'm not offering food to her anymore right now. I'll wait for her to have time to heal her digestive system. She's not been showing any signs of health problems previous to this, and she had been eating well.

Even if you don't suspect parasites, I'd still suggest taking a sample in for testing. If your snake does have parasites, you don't want to lose any time before you start treating them. Regurgitating meals and loose, pale stools can be signs of cryptosporidiosis, which is a highly communicable parasite that is pretty much untreatable at the present time. If you choose to forego testing, PLEASE make sure that this snake is kept away from any other reptiles you may have, and make sure to wash and disinfect your hands immediately after cleaning or handling the snake. Crypto is transferred by contact with contaminated feces, and according to information I have read, it can be passed to humans.

Like I said before, she is and has been our only pet inside. We used to have a dog outside, but we had to put her down at 14 years old last year. My son and I are the only ones who have handled her since bringing her home, and my son hasn't handled her since Sunday. We have an alcohol rub beside her Viv. We wash our hands before holding her with soap and water and use the alcohol rub after holding her. This has been done religously, and we have not missed it once.

She has not passed a stool or had any signs of spitting up again since sunday. She did shed last night. It was a nice full skin with the exception the last inch of her tail. I did notice the entire top part of the head came off including the eye caps. The shed split under her jaw somewhere, but I didn't see any loose skin on her there. She was nice and strong/active when I picked her up to have a look at her eyes and tail. I'll check her better tonight and run her through a warm bath towel to get off the last little bit of shed from the end of her tail.

Update: I was in a hurry to get to work this morning so what I thought was the top part of the head on the shed was actually under the jaw. So, the shed split somwhere on top, but I don't have that part so I can't confirm the eye caps came off with it, but I don't see any loose skin on her head :roll: . I dipped her tail in luke warm water and had a warm towel ready for after that. First time she went through, the last 3/4" of her shed came off much easier than I was expecting. Now she is stunning with her colors.

I noticed she was on the cool side of the Viv for the first time since Friday. It actually suprised me that she was under that hide. It's where she had been hanging out BEFORE her refusal to eat except right after a meal. But, like I said, she hadn't been over there at all lately. I don't know if it means anything, but it made me feel better to see her back where I would normally find her.

And, after I had already closed her back up my eye noticed something. She had dropped a stool on the cool side (her normal side for stools). It was small, but it was firm, black and already dry around the area. It looked just like her stools did a week-ten days ago. I don't know for sure whether it was last night or today when she did it, but as I said earlier I cleaned out the tank Sunday, and she's been hanging out on the warm side until today. I didn't notice it this morning.

I've got my fingers crossed that she was just stressed or maybe her last mouse didn't agree with her stomach. I'm still gonna play it safe and wait 'til next week to feed her.