New Juvi Northern Shed Help

[RhacGurl]

Hello, I am new to this forum and new to owning Blue Tongues. With that being said I bought a baby northern yesterday and noticed as soon as I got home that she had mites. I promptly washed her in water and povidone-iodine. She is also pretty skinny and was in shed. I plan on seeing a vet asap and have the animal quarantined from the rest of my collection (I have a large collection of Rhacodactylus and a few other species)

After washing her I noticed her shed, which was already very flaky, stared coming off unbelievably bad. I began to assist the animal by removing the shed. This took about an hour and only noticed one mite while working through his scales. When I thought I was done with one area and moved to another area I'd go back and there would be new layers to remove. Now I am new to Blue Tongues but I have been keeping reptiles my whole life and have never seen anything like this before. Can anyone help me understand what in the world is going on with this poor little girl and what I can do to help her before I can get her to a vet? (I am assuming girl because no hemipene but I could be wrong)

[RhacGurl]

Also, I wanted to add also that the guy told me he had primarily feeding the animal cat food and some fruit and NO veggies. There were a few crickets in the cage as well. I am considering this guy more of a rescue at this point than a pet I bought because I wish I would have known better based on the conditions the animal was in and what it was being fed.

[Spindown]

If you see one mite, there are still a ton. Treat aggressively, there are many mite threads on this forum if you use the search function.

My skinks usually shed all flakey, if they get really good sheds they come off in big chunks. They shed a lot differently than snakes or cresties, at least in my experience (I have snakes and used to have cresties). You may be seeing this more exaggerated if she had multiple layers of stuck shed...I'd agree this is more of a rescue animal. Poor thing! Glad you are here asking about her PROPER care.

You cant really tell what sex they are unless you behavior sex them, which can be a good indication but not always 100%, or for sure if you see hemipenes everted while they are defecating, or if you notice sperm plugs in the cage.
If you get a birds eye view of her, in a photo, we can guess gender for you though, which is always fun!

[RhacGurl]

Thank you Sapphire! I am in the process of pulling off third fourth and possibly fifth layers, is this normal, I understand that they can have a flaky shed but this really seems to be excessive. Got an ear plug out though which made me feel a lot better. Here are a couple pictures of her/it/him I named it Jerry because it has a missing finger like Jerry GarSKINKa! (I'm a dork haha) Thank you besides the mites, I am so thrilled to be a BTS owner!

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

Nice indo

[RhacGurl]

I knew something wasn't right.. I'm new to this. Thank you to pointing that out.

[Richard.C]

Definatly an indonesion,tiliqua gigas gigas

They can look skinnier than other types,long tail doesnt help,looks in decent shaoe to me,always good to treat new ones for mites regardless,so a good treatments good to do

With the shedding are u sure its like 5 layers of skin,that sounds excessive,normally if they have retained skin that many times you see some serious issues with restriction,ive never had the firtune to keep non aussie species,but what u describe sounds similar to how my kimberley northens shed,they go all flakey,almost looking like they have a serios case of dandruff,especially young ones,but they all seem to shed in small bits,which can give the imoressiin if multiple layers as its a bugger getting it off

[Richard.C]

20121019_171537.jpg

exhibit A

[Spindown]

more than one layer is excessive...means the person before was not taking proper care of him. I always keep a close eye on mine when they shed, they always get it all off except the occasional toe, which I just pick off in seconds. There is never any shed to create a next layer. This also happens in snakes and other reptiles that are not being properly cared for, as the animal cant get it all off, and it builds up into layers.