Today's Uneducated (or Stupid) Question

I spent this weekend in Boston visiting our friend; while there I helped out with a difficult shed for her ball python. This consisted of wrapping Basi (said BP) in a damp towel, then helping him get his skin off.

While doing this, I started to wonder "how would you handle your hot snake's dry shed?" I don't think you want to put your unrestrained black mamba in a sink, wrap it in a towel, and then free-handle it until the skin is off... but I'm also guessing that you're going to have to deal with this situation sooner or later if you own hots.

My guess would be that you use a tube to keep its head restrained while you pull off the offending skin... but that's a complete guess. So I figured I'd turn to the experts. Sorry for what's probably an utterly stupid question, but I figured that the only stupid question is the one you don't ask... (or, alternately, "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.")

my method of choice was always to put said snake into a plastic storage container with an inch or so of water (depth adjusted to size of animal). let'em sit in that for a couple of hours and the skin would separate on its own. obviously, the container would have to be well secured...I usually just put it inside the animals, or some other empty cage. Alternately, I have used a series of tie-down straps, bungees, or duct tape, depending on my particular situation at the time. For problematic pieces of skin, just leave your damp/wet towel in the container after you drain the water out. I have resorted to manual removal, but by following the above that sort of thing can generally be avoided.

I work on the weekends at Medtoxin Laboratories. They have roughly 700 venomous at anytime. During the transitional months with AC and heat many of the asain snakes (particularly monocled, and king cobras) have some issues with shedding. With the larger animals we manually restrain them and have some of the helpers peel the sheds. Smaller ones we do the above mentioned shoe box/container with water and most come off overnight.


One the mamba comment
We definately would not let our black mambas loose in the sink to soak but they are not as bad as everyone makes them out to be. Even myself, when I started working with them I had all these ideas in my head of how they would act and they are actually much more accepting than I thought.

Helping a black mamba shed isn't particularly difficult unless you have a terrified one that is very new to captivity, and then it can be a bit of a stress puppy that really won't benefit by handling. The risk to the animal must be considered. You generally don't do a patient any favors by brute forcing it through a procedure. The less restraint you can get away with applying, the healthier and safer it is for the animal.

If you do have one of the sensitive, scared animals, or if you just don't feel comfortable going that close hands-on with your snake (in which case, why in the world are you keeping it?), placing it in a small cage or a pillowcase with clean wet towels can be helpful. That is a good and minimally stressful method of helping a snake shed. I will use humane sedation in any procedure that is frightening a snake and causing it to struggle for prolonged periods, whether or not that snake is venomous. But it's always best if you can accomplish the same goal with less restraint and less drugs.

Problems like retained shed are one reason that I like to keep my animals well habituated to handling, so that simple veterinary procedures and examinations may be carried out with minimal stress and risk to both animal and handler. This is not to say that I take them out and play with them for extended periods just for fun, but I do spend a few extra minutes during routine husbandry doing things like touching or rubbing an animal with a hook to desensitize it to contact. Or I step them through a basic physical exam every so often, whether they appear to need one or not. It helps to acclimate them to this procedure, and sometimes you detect things on palpation you wouldn't have seen visually.

Preventative husbandry is a good thing. One technique I use to forestall shedding problems is simply to keep the humidity in an appropriate range for the species and let the animals soak or swim regularly. With mambas and other arboreals, I place clean artificial branches in the bathtub, turn the shower to a gentle lukewarm sprinkle, and allow one at a time to sit on the branches for 15 minutes or so. If I'm in a hurry and housing a lot of arboreals, I use mesh caging in a secure room and take them outside or in the shower to spray regularly through the mesh. I also have misters installed in some cages where the animals need regular ambient humidity. Hygrometers, sold in cigar supply stores for use in your humidor, are cheap and excellent for assessing the captive environment. Radio Shack also sells some good tools for this.

Venomous snakes should be maintained to the same good standards of care, including veterinary support care, as any other animals in captivity. I can understand that many people do not feel comfortable doing hands-on work with venomous snakes, and those people really should not be keeping these species if they cannot give an acceptable standard of care.

I couldn't agree more. While it is generally preferred/recommended that you do as much as possible "hands off" with venomous snakes, if you keep enough of them for long enough, you will probably have to do some kind of hands on care. If you don't want to, or don't have the skills to do this, you shouldn't have them. I have had to peel retained eyecaps on cobras, treat mouthrot in puff adders, and yes, force feed various hots. there are all kinds of tools and devices to make things as safe as possible, but there are still situations that call for a hands on approach. I've always viewed it as my responsibility to do whatever was necessary for the care of the animals in my charge - and the fact that they were aggressive or venomous (or both) never changed that. the only difference was in my approach.

WE use all of these metnods at the zoo where I work.

Originally Posted by snakegetters

Venomous snakes should be maintained to the same good standards of care, including veterinary support care, as any other animals in captivity. I can understand that many people do not feel comfortable doing hands-on work with venomous snakes, and those people really should not be keeping these species if they cannot give an acceptable standard of care.

I'm still in the "watching, listening and learning" stage: I haven't yet made any impulse purchases which would get me thrown out of my domicile. But I figured the only way you learn about these issues is by asking questions -- and better to ask while it's still a theoretical issue instead of posting "Hey, my Taipan is having a bad shed ... what should I do now?"

Originally Posted by Rakshasanyc

I'm still in the "watching, listening and learning" stage: I haven't yet made any impulse purchases which would get me thrown out of my domicile. But I figured the only way you learn about these issues is by asking questions -- and better to ask while it's still a theoretical issue instead of posting "Hey, my Taipan is having a bad shed ... what should I do now?"

Sorry if I came across as lecturing to you personally; this is my General Venomous Snake Keeping Lecture 101 that is generally aimed at people who are more impulse driven and less intelligent than you.

It is very good to ask questions and to get the answers before you buy a taipan and then realize that you do not know how to give it basic care for something silly and simple like a bad shed. You are smart enough to do that. Sadly a lot of other people aren't.

I do not have a lot of sympathy for people who become hospital statistics because they were too stupid to plan ahead, but it sucks rather a lot for the responsible keepers when such incidents make the news, and it sucks even more for the snakes themselves. They don't deserve to have their care skimped over because the people keeping them have snake appetites that are bigger than their actual handling skills.

I can promise that you do eventually get to the stage of total familiarity with these animals where it just isn't any major cause for excitement when they need some hands-on care. Poking into a Gaboon mouth before breakfast or getting a mamba to shed before lunch or giving a king cobra an antibiotic shot before dinner is a dull sort of routine chore around here. To give you an idea how dull, when we had this one batch of mambas in that were getting shots at the end of every day, my handling partner and I would argue over who had to take out the garbage and who got to give the mambas their shots. The really sucky job that nobody wanted was taking out the garbage.