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Sex of my corn?

aNi-DiFrAnCo

aNi-DiFrAnCo

New member
I have a corn and I never had it sexed, I haved deemed it a female, which probably won't change in the end because I am not looking to breed him/her, but today she was on my hand and pooped...after she was done there was something sticking out which looked like a hemi-penis, but I dont know if that happens with either sex when they go to the bathroom, or if this is just in males. As I said it doesn't matter if she is male or female but I am still curious.
 
telling sexes

Did you notice if there was two little pink things out or just one, if there were two it is a male, if just one then female. You can also tell by the tail. On males the tail tapers sooner after the poop hole. Females dont taper as much, they have longer skinier tails. But if your not going to breed your snake it really doesent matter. But for the names your are thinking about for him/her.
 
Glad to see such a quick reply. Yes it was only one. Her tail doesnt taper the way a males tail does...i can always take a pic.
 
Re: telling sexes

newt said:
On males the tail tapers sooner after the poop hole. Females dont taper as much, they have longer skinier tails
Click to expand...

aNi-DiFrAnCo,
Hmm, I believe this is inacurate. It's the "female" which has the shorter, more rapidly tapering tail. There are several books out there for more information but here's a LINK to Bill and Kathy Love's site which includes a paragraph explanation and a pic of some tails to aid you on this topic. If you don't already own a copy of their Corn Snake Manual then you may wish to purchase a copy. It's the holy grail of corn snake books. There are several other corn books available, but this one really is the most comprehensive.

Cheers,
Jason
 
I believe you're right Jason. Also, I don't know that the female should have anything protruding from the vent. A male may show only 1 part of the hemipenes for breeding, so I don't know why it couldn't have one protrude at other times. What would be coming out of the vent on the female?
 
A while back, one of my males seemed constipated... he was eating well, but hadn't gone to the bathroom for over 2 weeks, so I decided to give him a warm water bath to try to see if I could induce him to go.

He was very upset of the idea of taking a bath, but my idea worked and he passed a huge amount of feces. YUCK! He also inverted at least one of his hemipenes (I can't remember if he stuck out both) at the same time (possibly from staining so hard to get his poop out?).

I've also heard that they will invert their hemipenes when stressed, so this could be a reason too.

By the way, it's hard to tell, but from your photos, it looks like a male to me.
 
Thank you guys so much for your insight. Though, she will still stay a "she" because she has already got an "identity of her own" and it would be difficult to change that.
 
funny you mention this, because just today i was giving my corn a bath and while he was pooping i did see him make a protrusion that he pulled back in when he was done. he's been probed a boy, and i haven't had any other reason to believe otherwise. but i do not think it is a hemipenis because it comes directly from the middle. so.. i also don't believe this is a gender specific phenomonom!
 
One thing that I didn't mention in my post is that when my snake inverted his hemipenis, he released a bit of semen as well (I think some people call these sperm plugs?).

Did you notice any little white spots that didn't look like urates or feces?
 
I think it is most likely a male from the pictures and everyone responses. Now I have always gone by they're sheds. I read somewhere that when females shed they also shed the tips of their scent glands(down by vent). As far as I can tell this is pretty acurate. Most all my females that have shed always have two little reds dots on their sheds. None of my males sheds ever have these red dots. I also think this is true too because it proves out on my adult females that I know 110% sure that they are female. So if you have a recent shed of her just look for the red dots but I would also have her probed by a expert herp vet.
 
I've never noticed that. I'll have to look. I have two females....Wow, learn something new everyday!
 
Charlie said:
None of my males sheds ever have these red dots.
Click to expand...

Nope, sorry, not true there. Both my male's sheds and my female's sheds have those red dots on them. And I know it's not due to missexing them.

The only way I know of to use shed skins to determine sex is by counting scales.
 
Here's how I understand scale counting to work, but I have no idea if it's accurate. Can anyone verify this technique?

Using a shed skin, count the two rows of scales on the underside of the snake from the cloaca to the tip of his/her tail, if the total of the two rows is 130 or less then it's likely a female and if there are 140 or more its said to be a male. Unfortunately a count between 130 and 140 could be 'either' so your mileage may vary.
Click to expand...
 
I can't verify that way of doing things, but this is what I use:

Count the ventral scales. Then count the subcaudal scales. Then subtract the subcaudal scale total from the ventral scale total. If this total is less than 154 then it is most likely a male, if it is more than 154 then it is most likely a female. The farther away from 154, in either direction, the more accurate the sex prediction is.


Example 1:

Ventral scales = 230
Subcaudal scales = 81
Difference = 149

Verdict: Most likely male (<154)


Example 2:

Ventral scales = 225
Subcaudal scales = 64
Difference = 161

Verdict: Most likely female (>154)
 
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