Baby Boa retained one eyecap

[lonewolf1253]

Hi all,
New here and I have a question I hope someone can answer. My BCC is about 3 months old and after he shed last night, I'm pretty certain he retained one eye cap. I'm going to increase the humidity. I used to own many boas when I was young and never had any shed problems. I didn't know much about snakes then and never bothered with humidity. Now that I'm paying attention, this happens. So I was wondering what I should do about it or is it best just to wait for the next shed. I fed him this morning so I can't touch him for 48 hours. Any advise would be appreciated!

[toddnbecka]

I'd bag the snake in a wet pillowcase for several hours, then use a damp q-tip to try to get the retained eye cap loose. Are you certain the eye cap didn't come off?

[lonewolf1253]

Well, the shed only had one eye cap on it and I had to remove some excess skin around its neck. But no, I'm not certain so I'm reluctant to mess with it. I fed him this morning, bad idea, so I can't really get him out and look at it closely. I've read that even if it is retained, one layer won't hurt him and it will probably come off on the next shed. Or so I've read. I've heard that messing with it is a bad idea since he's small and it would just put undo stress on him. I'll see if I can get a better look once he's digested his meal.

[toddnbecka]

Was the shed only missing the eye cap from that portion of the head piece, or was it generally tattered? I keep all my boas on cypress mulch substrate to help maintain higher humidity. Sheds come off cleanly, but not always in one piece. One retained eye cap isn't a big deal, I've seen posts on FB from folks with ball pythons (usually a rescue) that had so many layers on the eye caps they thought the snake was blind until after a good clean shed.

[lonewolf1253]

It was generally tattered. Yeah, I'll probably get the humidity better and if I still can't tell, I'll just wait for the next shed and then know for sure. All my previous snakes were adults when I got them so I'm leery of manhandling a small one that's very head shy. Thanks for the advice!

[lonewolf1253]

Just an update on my juvenile BCC and the retained eye cap. I saw she was gong into shed again and increased the humidity to about 85% give or take. 36 hours after her eyes cleared she did a perfect shed. Looks like it was done with little effort as it was just laying there like a rolled condom under her hide as was a large dump. I unrolled it and it was perfect with eye caps intact. So IMO it's important to notice when they are going to shed. But that's easy for me because I just have the one snake.
Sorry about the, "rolled condom", analogy but that's exactly what it looked like.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Sounds like you got it figured out! The rolled up part is pretty common, it ends up like that when they shed inside a hide, using their body and the walls to shed.

[BillyCostume]

Good to hear she's doing well :) a single retained eyecap isn't a huge deal. Trying to remove could harm the snake especially in cases like yours where you aren't 100% sure the eye cap was retained. My brother received a ball python with both eye caps retained and several patches of stuck shed as well. With proper husbandry its first shed with my bro was clean. It pays to be patient ;) be sure to get some pics up!