July 17th, 2008:

Birch, the emaciated boa (hadn't eaten for over a year) was suffering from mouth rot and was stuck in many layers of unshed skin, including her eyes. She was severely dehydrated and covered in patches of infected and inflamed scales and had multiple shallow one inch gashes on her upper body.

So far she has shed the vast majority of her unshed skin, although has a bit more to lose starting at her second saddle going up towards her head...she had multiple sores there, and it's the part she tends to keep out of the water during a bath! The skin is difficult to peel off manually without hurting her, so we're just letting it come off naturally. She was on antibiotics and her mouth rot is gone. The sores on her gums are gone and her scales are no longer inflamed and infected. We have been able to peel off three layers of skin from each eye but they still appear to be covered in yet another layer...it will take awhile to get it off, but she can obviously see better now and you can actually see the colors of her eyes a bit.

The best news is that she ate an adult mouse on July 8th! It was a small snack to get her digestive system up and working again, but she took it eagerly. All she needed was to feel better!

Birch is doing extraordinarily well! She is now only having weekly baths and eagerly ate another adult mouse a week ago. On the first, she surprised us all by completely shedding her entire body all by herself, including her head and eyes! She can finally see now, and although it looks as if she has one more layer to go, you can finally see the colors of her eyes and she is a lot more active. She is very eager to eat now and we're going to feed her a small rat tomorrow evening. We have little doubt that handle it without a problem.