daner923
Gray-bearded Member
Hi all!
I'm sure you regulars have seen me posting a lot. My set up is definitely 100% bd.org approved for an 8 month old dragon (digital therm with probe and temp gun, 105-110F basking, 75-80F cool side, above 65F overnight, no colored bulb, ReptiSun 10.0 tube mounted inside tank, white basking light, tile substrate, offer live twice a day 10-15 minutes (well, until he's done recently), feed turnip and dandelion greens available all day, no heat pad or rock, no water bowl unless humidity gets below 10%, 2-3 baths a week, calcium 4-5 days a week and multivitamin 1-2 times a week (depending on how hungry Max is each day), and no misting), so I know that's fine. Anyways, I discovered tonight that Max has what I believe is retained shed on his tail. A bit of gentle/idle rubbing when he was cuddling tonight flaked some scales off his tail. I had noticed a slight bend at the very tip of the tail and some odd texture an inch or so down from there after his last tail shed (almost 2 months ago), but hadn't though anything of it. Now I'm realizing he had some retained shed. A bit more gentle rubbing with a baby toothbrush got some more off, but Max was getting pretty squirmy, and I think he may have ripped a scale off (although it didn't bleed, so maybe there's two layers, or he is getting ready to start a new shed??). I know I can treat that with betadine and/or neosporin. My question is this: now that I got most of the retained shed off, how can I tell whether any other rough patches are retained shed from before, or a new shed getting ready to begin? I don't want to hurt him or his scale growth by scrubbing off a shed that isn't ready to go yet, but I also don't want him to get tail rot from having layers of retained shed. Any suggestions, guys?
Thanks,
Andrew
I'm sure you regulars have seen me posting a lot. My set up is definitely 100% bd.org approved for an 8 month old dragon (digital therm with probe and temp gun, 105-110F basking, 75-80F cool side, above 65F overnight, no colored bulb, ReptiSun 10.0 tube mounted inside tank, white basking light, tile substrate, offer live twice a day 10-15 minutes (well, until he's done recently), feed turnip and dandelion greens available all day, no heat pad or rock, no water bowl unless humidity gets below 10%, 2-3 baths a week, calcium 4-5 days a week and multivitamin 1-2 times a week (depending on how hungry Max is each day), and no misting), so I know that's fine. Anyways, I discovered tonight that Max has what I believe is retained shed on his tail. A bit of gentle/idle rubbing when he was cuddling tonight flaked some scales off his tail. I had noticed a slight bend at the very tip of the tail and some odd texture an inch or so down from there after his last tail shed (almost 2 months ago), but hadn't though anything of it. Now I'm realizing he had some retained shed. A bit more gentle rubbing with a baby toothbrush got some more off, but Max was getting pretty squirmy, and I think he may have ripped a scale off (although it didn't bleed, so maybe there's two layers, or he is getting ready to start a new shed??). I know I can treat that with betadine and/or neosporin. My question is this: now that I got most of the retained shed off, how can I tell whether any other rough patches are retained shed from before, or a new shed getting ready to begin? I don't want to hurt him or his scale growth by scrubbing off a shed that isn't ready to go yet, but I also don't want him to get tail rot from having layers of retained shed. Any suggestions, guys?
Thanks,
Andrew
