shedding issue

[Spooki]

my new gecko shed just before i got him... but he still has two little fingers that have old skin on them. he is not using his moist hide and i have tried bathing him and rubbing it gently with a q-tip but it's not coming off. i don't want him to wind up losing his fingers, is there anything else i can try or should i wait a little longer to see if it will loosen up?

 

[lytlesnake]

I would try another soak and some tweezers.

 

[2bacop]

I agree with the tweezers thats what we do at work just make sure you keep your hands clear of the mouth cause some leos are fine with it and some aren't

 

[Spooki]

well i just got home from work and i see all that's left is some skin on the finger tips. i'm going to give him another soak and see how it goes.

 

[runko]

good luck

 

[rubym]

We have one boy that has horrible sheds. I bought a bottle of that "shed aide" that I use on his toes and it seems to help him. He had lost 4 toes before we got him and I try to make sure he never looses any more.

 

[Spooki]

there was a beardie where i work who lost a whole foot to a bad shed. he was left with a ridiculous looking stump but he still got around fine. it amazingly started growing back even though the vet said it wouldn't.

as for my gecko, he just has the tiniest little piece left. he's a good shedder, just missed a piece. i'm going to give him one last soak tonight, whether he likes it or not. the piece of skin is about the size of a tailor's/ sewing pin head so i'm not too worried.

 

[MSMD]

I also keep some Shed-Aid on hand in case of a bad shed. It works pretty good. You just spray it on and then rub it in and the stuck shed usually pulls off while rubbing it in. Every once in a while there's a difficult piece that requires the use of some tweezers.

 

[Spooki]

well, i finally managed to get it all off. it was really stuck on that one toe! i noticed there was still a small bit stuck on his bulges and vent... he got really annoyed when i tried to get that off until he realized what i was doing. he calmed down right away which was quite the relief.

 

[lytlesnake]

Well done! Glad to hear he's feeling better now.

 

[Spooki]

using tweezers helped a lot but i was so afraid i was going to pinch his little toe. he didn't seem to care, but last night he freaked out when i tried it. it seemed to really hurt so i stopped and left him alone until now.

 

[lytlesnake]

You must use a surgical touch when "tweezing". Sometimes it takes a lot of patience before you can get them to hold still for a few seconds. I've tweezed some small hatchlings. In those cases I use the Q-Tip to get a little separation between the skin and the toe, then pull it off with the tweezers. If that doesn't work, you can try the very tip of the tweezers, very carefully.

 

[Spooki]

i doubt he's ever had someone help him shed before, lol... his last owners didn't really know anything about leopard geckos.

and of course now that i got the skin off he's using his moist hide. he's being rather active all of a sudden, guess he feels better now that the skin is off his... area.