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Scale count for cornsnakes...?

Scally Friends

Scally Friends

New member
ive been have problems finding, good reptile keeper who probe in my local area. some suggested that i lean to scale count. but i cant find out much on it.

im woundering if someone can give me a little advice.....

thanx
charlotte
 
Hi Charlotte, here's the method that I have used. This can be done from a shed skin that is intact, and is obviously easier on a snake that is at least 20" or longer. Count the ventral(belly) scales from the neck down to the anal plate. Then count the sub cauds(paired scales below the vent) count each pair as one. Subtract the sub cauds from the ventrals. A count larger than 154 is presumed to be female while a count lower than 154 is usually a male.
I just did this with my 03 male amel and the final total was 143.
I don't know where this method originated, I first heard of it a few years ago over at kingsuck.com and it was scoffed at by most users, however Connie has included this info in the March nesletter so I'm sure there is something to it. :cheers:
 
Yep... I first heard it over on the other forum too. Don't know who originally posted about it, but it works so well, that if you do a search for it, you'll probably find that I'm the main person to mention it nowadays.

It's a pain in the butt, especially on hatchling sheds where you basically need a microscope, LOL, but it's worked on every snake I've ever counted.
 
Thanx you very much guys....

its been a big help and i tested it out on all my other corn that hav been proded, and it has been very successful and has been right every time.

Ive also tried my other which are yearlings and got the sexes i wanted.

yet again thankyou very much for your help

Charlotte
xxx
 
Attention Attention...!!!

I dont no whats just happend, but im at home and i posted the message above this and its come up wiv someone else and then my computer crashed on me....

whats happening to my computer is it been hacked or something...?

Anyway it was me who sent that message above... not this guy name CHARLIE who ever he is.

im goin av to get a better fire wall or something...

any way just thought i would tell you..

Charlotte
 
Scally Friends said:
I dont no whats just happend, but im at home and i posted the message above this and its come up wiv someone else and then my computer crashed on me....

whats happening to my computer is it been hacked or something...?

Anyway it was me who sent that message above... not this guy name CHARLIE who ever he is.

im goin av to get a better fire wall or something...

any way just thought i would tell you..

Charlotte
Click to expand...

Do you look at this website from a library or something? If you forget to log out or he forgets to log out, you can have problems.

Change your password.
 
Definitely get a good firewall going. If I'm not mistaken, I think that charlie bing is the one that was claiming the ghost picture as his own :eek1:
 
oh right, my daughter and i use the same log in name, cus im busy in the day at work and she uses it at college in the day.

will change my password now...lol
 
I was interested in this method of sexing, so I tried it on my 4 year old Male Anery that has just shed, as i have some youngsters I want to sex.
However my count ended up at 164, which blows this theory.
I was just thinking tho, counting the pairs of scales after the vent, would surely be higher in males than females as they have longer tails, would this method alone work, and be easier than counting all the belly scales as well.
I would be interested to know if anyone else has any easy methods of sexing snakes, as I have never been keen on the idea of probing?
 
WAS1 said:
I was interested in this method of sexing, so I tried it on my 4 year old Male Anery that has just shed, as i have some youngsters I want to sex.
However my count ended up at 164, which blows this theory.
I was just thinking tho, counting the pairs of scales after the vent, would surely be higher in males than females as they have longer tails, would this method alone work, and be easier than counting all the belly scales as well.
I would be interested to know if anyone else has any easy methods of sexing snakes, as I have never been keen on the idea of probing?
Click to expand...
According to the info in Connie's newsletter, females have 41-62 rows or less and males having 67-86 or more. Just out of curiosity have you bred your 4yr old male, or how do you know that it's a male? :cheers:
 
Congratulations on the successful breeding. I guess that shows that the scale count is not always reliable. I have seen snakes that were probed incorrectly as well. Obviously there is no better method than to witness the snakes breeding. I will say that in my case of 2 females and 2 males, that were probed, the scale count from the shed skins was 4 for 4 :wavey:
 
The scale counting thing isn't foolproof. This year I had a couple hatchlings that measured right at 154 and some were male and some female, but overall, I really like it as a good way to estimate the sex of a snake, especially if you are just wanting to confirm the sex you already think it is.
 
Hmmm . . .

I know this method isn't foolproof, obviously, but I thought I'd try it for fun, and partly because every time I look at my crimson I think her tail looks very long like a male, although I bought her as a female, the guy I bought her from said she'd been probed. He had all his deli cups marked with the sex of the snake and he seemed pretty reliable to me, I really didn't question it at the time, but these days her tail always says "male" to me (tho I am far from an expert at this!). So I counted her tail scales and got 66 for her - almost a male. Then I counted the rest of her scales, subtracted the 66 and got 164 - which would be female! Hmmmm . . . :shrugs:

Now as for Orion and Selene, they were probed and I was told one was male and one was female. I could have mixed them up, but I don't think I did. I wasn't too worried about it anyway, since I figured I had a male ghost and a female ghost I wasn't going to sweat it. So since Orion just shed, I counted the scales and here's what I got: tail scales - 66 - also (really! and I double checked both of them and I'm sure I didn't mix them up) again almost a male (LOL), but then when I counted all the scales and subtracted the 66 I got 178, which again would be female! Hmmmm . . . :shrugs: Now, I don't have a decent shed to count from for Selene because hers broke and I can't find the tail (I had it, but now it's gone).

Okay, last but not least, I did Monty's shed. His tail scales were 70 even. Male. Well, except when I counted his other scales and subtracted 70 I got 162. Again, Female. Now, Monty was popped and so I assume that if they saw anything that indicated male he probably IS male, so originally I went with that. Hmmmm . . . :shrugs:

As I said, I know it's not foolproof, but many of you have had good results using this method. I wouldn't have been too surprised if 1 of the snakes had uncertain results, but all 3? It's strange, I am seriously looking at buying a couple more snakes for my future breeding projects - so having this sudden gender confusion with my snakes has me a little worried.

Anyway, I went ahead and posted pics of their tails in the photo gallery, under "guess the snake's sex" headings . . . LOL Any thoughts on this would be appreciated, though I guess either I'm probably going to haul them out to get them probed or buy some and attempt to do it myself. Fun!! :rolleyes:
 
peep_827 said:
I know this method isn't foolproof, obviously, but I thought I'd try it for fun, and partly because every time I look at my crimson I think her tail looks very long like a male, although I bought her as a female, the guy I bought her from said she'd been probed. He had all his deli cups marked with the sex of the snake and he seemed pretty reliable to me, I really didn't question it at the time, but these days her tail always says "male" to me (tho I am far from an expert at this!). So I counted her tail scales and got 66 for her - almost a male. Then I counted the rest of her scales, subtracted the 66 and got 164 - which would be female! Hmmmm . . . :shrugs:
Click to expand...
This is exactly what happend when I did a scale count on ozzy. "He" looked very female, so I did a scale count and the tail was 66, but after counting all of the others and subtracting I ended up with 167. I'm almost positive ozzy IS a girl though, the tail is really short and tapers right after the vent.
 
You got 66 also?!? That's too funny . . . LOL Did you do the scale count on Sharon also? I have to admit, I'm perplexed . . . the only one whose sex I *really* questioned was Petunia! Those scale count results were just too weird tho!
 
I haven't done sharon yet, I couldn't find the tail untill I had the rest framed and I was worried it might break if I took it out lol. I think "she" is a male though, the tail is kinda questionable (at least for me :p ) but it's sooooo long compaired to ozzy's tail. It's nice having two so I can compare :)
 
This is very interesting. I've personally never seen a snake that had a scale count that far from 154 (in either direction) not fit the actual gender of the snake.

Like I said it's not going to be fool-proof, but I've never seen it be wrong when the count was in the 160's or 140's.

Using Connie's method of just counting the rows of tail scales, here's some results of mine (all of these snakes are proven breeders and "my" method has been right each time, except for one inconclusive result):

81 subcaudal rows = male (using "my" method: 149 = male)
82 subcaudal rows = male (using "my" method: 130 = male)
64 subcaudal rows = inconclusive (using "my" method: 161 = female)
74 subcaudal rows = male (using "my" method: 154 = inconclusive results, but he's a male)
66 subcaudal rows = inconclusive, but leaning towards male (using "my" method: 165 = female)
70 subcaudal rows = male (using "my" method: 163 = female)
71 subcaudal rows = male (using "my" method: 162 = female)

So... as you can see, these two different ways of determining sex can yield conflicting results.
 
Heh, "Connie's method" is not Connie's method. ;) There were over 5 methods described in the newsletter including the two scale methods mentioned. Actually, Connie's method is probing or popping. :p

There are many ways to sex snakes, but IMO the only 100% positive ways to know are to cut them open and look at the organs (...which is not only gross to some, detrimental to the snake, but is also not very practical, LOL) or visibly see a male evert its hemipene(s) or a female lay a clutch of eggs or slugs.

Short of that, in order of reliability by me and to me, here's a list of some sexing options: (in order from most accurate in my hands, to least)

Probing (any)

Popping (hatchlings)

Candling (light, hatchlings mostly)

Tail sexing (visual sexing) (any, but more noticeable in adults)

Full body scale count method (any that have a full length tail)

Caudal scale count method (any that have a full length tail)

Flip of a quarter - at least 50% accurate half the time. :p



As to which methods I personally use: popping, probing, and visual ID - I'm not patient enough to count all the scales for something that is less accurate than the other methods I may employ. ;)
 
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