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Old enough to probe?

xStaticSnow

xStaticSnow

New member
I recently bought a probing set that I'm really happy with... I'm hoping to start breeding in about 2-3 years and I want to start getting supplies and animals together now so that I'll be all set once the time comes!

I met up with a ball python breeder in town who helped me probe two of my adult snakes. I already knew my rosy boa was male so we started with him, but I had never had an absolute sex for my snow corn. I probed the corn on my own and am 90% sure he is a male (the probe went in about 7 caudal scales).

I have another unsexed corn who is about a year old (maybe closer to two?). The woman I got him from thought male, but it doesn't sound like she was positive. I looked at his vent and it just seems too small for me to probe and not be totally worried about it. About how large/old should they be before probing? (I can't pop snakes to save my life... sigh)

Here's a picture of him so you can get an idea of how big he is now!
 

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His so handsome, were you nervous to probe? I cant find anyone knowledgeable to probe my Corn and Python other than a Vet
 
TheFrogman said:
His so handsome, were you nervous to probe? I cant find anyone knowledgeable to probe my Corn and Python other than a Vet
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Not really! It helps a lot of have someone knowledgeable there with you, but I did it myself without any problems. You really barely push at all, and the probe moves in on its own, then the "stop" is pretty noticeable. If you have a gentle steady hand, and someone knowledgeable to help you out, then it's no big deal at all.
 
I probe hatchlings, it is easy to do and helps if you have someone to hold the snake for you while you probe.
 
I think that snake is plenty big enough to probe. Definitely too big to pop!!

I'd love to see a photo of his tail, from underneath, straight, so we can bet on what he is, and then you prove it.
 
Nanci said:
I think that snake is plenty big enough to probe. Definitely too big to pop!!

I'd love to see a photo of his tail, from underneath, straight, so we can bet on what he is, and then you prove it.
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I'll try my best! It'll have to be a one person job for tonight since no one else in the house will touch a snake, haha.
 
Okay, I grabbed a few pictures (sorry if they're not that great) so go ahead and throw out some guesses before I try and probe him/her :)

Also I'm going to post a couple pictures of the snake next to three of my smallest probes and I was wondering if someone who is more experienced could recommend which size I should be using? I'm leaning towards the middle one.

Edit: Sorry for oversized/warped photos! :/
 

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I think the middle one. I predict FEMALE! I know you have already probed, but Kathy Love had a good video on probing corns on YouTube. Just search Kathy Love Probing Corn Snakes or something and you'll find it. (She and Bill taught me in person, back in the good ole days when they lived in Florida...)
 
Nanci said:
I think the middle one. I predict FEMALE! I know you have already probed, but Kathy Love had a good video on probing corns on YouTube. Just search Kathy Love Probing Corn Snakes or something and you'll find it. (She and Bill taught me in person, back in the good ole days when they lived in Florida...)
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Oh man, I sure hope you're right! :D Fingers crossed for female!

I've actually watched that video probably 15 times! Haha. It's really helpful :)

And okay, then middle probe it is. I'm going to wait until mid-day to attempt to probe the little one. I've noticed my snakes are a little too squirmy in the evening or early morning, but they're usually much calmer in the middle of the day when they're more "sleepy"

I want to get a few more guesses before I reveal the gender! Go ahead and test out your visual sexing skills everyone :D
 
I just want to say that I had a female corn that probed 8 scales.
She absolutely was female though, considering she laid a beautiful cluth of eggs for me!
I don't have her anymore unfortunately.
 
When I probed my snow it just *looked* like he was male. I wouldn't say that he probed shallow at all. I'm planning on doing it again though, since I only probed the left side of cloaca, this time I'll probe the right side too.

He also has always displayed pretty typical male behavior. He usually fasts in the Spring and goes stir-crazy, out crusing his viv all day. Once he rubbed his nose on the screen of his cage so much that he got a little scab. He's not very large either. I would have been very surprised if he had probed female...
 
Okay, I did it! I'm pretty sure the snake is female, the probe seemed to only want to go in about a quarter centimeter.

I got a little anxious because when I went to probe the right side of the cloaca she sorta yanked her tail backwards, and I felt like this caused the probe to move inward with a little too much force. How can I tell if the probe possibly could have injured her at all? I don't think that it did, but I'm still a little nervous.

Even when she jerked her tail like that the probe still did not move in much farther than it had on the other side of the cloaca, so I'm thinking that supports the female identification.
 
SquamishSerpents said:
I too guess female.

Also,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN7PZ2YKoWQ

I can 100% guarantee that it is possible to "palpate" corns. I do it all the time. Same with ball pythons.
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Wow, awesome! I palpated my snow corn and felt the little bump about 2 inches down his tail. Tried it with my male ball python, and felt the bump again, tried it on the little pewter and no matter how carefully I tried to feel, there was no bump! Really interesting method of sexing. I can't believe I hadn't heard of it before?

So I think I'm going to go ahead and call my pewter a female. I wont know for sure until I decide to start breeding, but I have no reason to suspect male at this point.

Thanks everyone! :)
 
I never could get the hang of palpating corns. I want to try it on Rich's ball python next week, if I can remember! I think I'll try some of the males today when I feed.
 
I'm going to try palpating my older 2 corns. I think the people I got them from had them mixed up. I think the boy is actually a girl and the girl is the boy.

Will I need to change their names if they are mixed up? Bosco isn't a great girls name and Isis isn't very manly lol.
 
Alicia, you should first just look at the tails and see if you can site sex them! Once they are adult, males are usually easy to pick out. When I got the bloodreds Ancho and Aji from Carol, I didn't know which was which, so I just sight sexed them instead of probing, and then when they bred, it turned out I was right!

This was also how I discovered that my prized Okeetee Raven was actually a male. I had him out one day and he just looked so blatantly male I decided to check. Yup. And after that, he started exposing himself and dropping sperm plugs all over as if he no longer had to worry about disappointing me with his sex!
 
Thank you Nanci!! Visually Bosco looks female and Isis looks male.

I'll have to start a thread with pictures of when I got them and now. I moved pictures around in my photobucket acct and messed up the original threads. They have grown soooo much since Feb when I got them.
 
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