Jan 14 2009
Skin, Skin, Everywhere
It seems to be shedding season in our Reptile Room right now. The other day I walked in to check on things and Mittens, our veiled chameleon, looked like a creature right out of a nightmare. She was a mess of flaky white skin, and in no mood to let anyone try and help her peel it off. We misted her and that seemed to help a bit, but it still took the rest of the day before she wasn’t quite so creepy looking (and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible.)
While Mittens was doing her thing, our female Ball python Esper was doing her own. She is the snake that recently got over a respiratory infection, and while she hasn’t been eating since then she seems to be growing just fine. She began to shed and managed to get crispy old skin off her face, before giving up and letting the rest of her old skin just sit there. About this time my partner decided to go in and help out. First he gave her a soak in warm water, and then he began the lengthy process of peeling the softened skin away.
In the wild reptiles can have problems shedding by themselves, even after soaking in puddles and ponds or scratching themselves against rocks and trees. They can end up with retained eye caps or layers of hard skin on top of other skin. So with our captive herps we take extra care to make sure each shed goes as well as possible. My partner will pick loose skin off the toes of the geckos, and peel it off the backs of the snakes, and sometimes even assist in removing it from eyecaps. This is the hardest one, as it takes a very skillful hand and either tape (rolling the sticky part gently over the eyecaps to lift them away) or tweezers (though we don’t recommend this as you can accidentally injure them by poking them in the eye.) 
