Bad shed - whole top of his head is stuck: Leave it alone, or try and get it off?

[Coluber42]

My BP (150-ish gram young'n) had his first shed since we've had him and it was a doozy. I got most of it off (including the tip of his tail) with warm water and wet towels, etc, but the whole top of his head is still stuck, along with both eyecaps.
It isn't encircling his neck or anything and it doesn't seem to bother him especially; he ate just fine, stuck shed and all. Actually, eating helped it peel up at the lip a bit, so that's progress (I was kind of hoping he'd have one of those feedings where he grabs the mouse in the middle and then wrassles it all over the place before figuring out how to get his mouth around it since that might help get some more peeling started, but of course this time he nailed it square in the face and slurped it right down like a wet noodle).

So I'm wondering if there's any particular reason I should keep trying to get it off, rather than waiting for it to come off on its own or just come off next time. He's a pretty shy and timid guy, not to mention head shy; so if it won't do any harm beyond looking dopey, I'd rather not put him through more rigamarole to get it off just for my sake.

He does have a humid hide, and the humidity has been 65-75% since he was in blue. It was at about 50% before that, with the exception that I was away for two days right as he was going into blue, and forgot to dampen his humid hide before I left, and the humidity had dropped to 40% when I got back (which I corrected immediately).

I know there are lots of methods for removing stuck shed, and I can handle holding his head and rubbing at it with a q-tip if I have to... but my real question is, should I even bother? Will it hurt him to just leave it alone?

[JLC]

It certainly won't hurt to leave him alone. If it were me, I'd give it a week or so and see if he gets around to rubbing it off on his own. If not...and if it bugged or concerned me in any way, then I'd try the wet washcloth in a pillowcase trick. Works like a charm.

[piedpipper]

Personally, I would do what I always do with stuck sheds. I posted a video on it a while back but the gist of it is you put the snake in a container or bin with very few air holes and a lot of wet spaghnum moss for a few hours in a warm place and the snake almost always gets the shed off by himself in short order. If not, by that time the shed is so soft you can literally wipe it off with your hand or a towel. I call it my snake sauna lol.

I've heard it can be dangerous to leave stuck eye caps on as they can potentially go blind but I cannot say I've ever experienced this personally.
Good luck with him!

[Albert Clark]

You can always add 100% cypress mulch to the enclosure to bump the overall humidity percentage. Which the eye caps should respond to right away. Any stuck or dented eyecaps.