Retained scales after Ball Python's shed

[Spiritmaster]

I have a (roughly) twenty month old normal ball python named Rogue. I've had him for about fourteen months and in that time he's never been a picky eater and he isn't nasty in his personality. Oh and he's never been sexed so the "he" is just an assumtion.

When he sheds he always fails to shed all the scales on his head. I haven't noticed any retained eye-caps but he has scales on his head that don't shed. His body sheds just fine but his head doesn't. He has a moist hide to help with his sheding and I try and keep a higher humidity in his tank than the house.

Here are a few pix of the retained scales.

[Daybreaker]

I have a snake that's going through the same thing. Had her since October (she had the stuck pieces when I got her), and it took her second shed a couple weeks ago to actually get some of the stubborn stuck shed off her head (she always got her eyecaps off). Here's a pic before she got the stuff off her:



I would put him in a damp towel case for a bit so it softens up his stuck shed and then have him run through a damp washcloth to try to peel away the stuck shed. You can gently rub his head with the wash cloth over the stuck pieces if he lets you.

[SpencerShanks]

Whenever I have tiny bits of stuck shed like that I go with the damp towel method as Daybreaker mentioned or if it's just a single small patch I get a moist q-tip and it rubs right off.