Posted by:
Rextiles
at Sat Dec 29 19:10:51 2012 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Rextiles ]
From the sounds of it, it's more than likely a female as at 45 grams (the estimated weight), you should more than likely be able to see a very noticeable difference in tail lengths between males and females. Male tail lengths at adult size seems to be around 20-30% of the overall length of the snake while females are drastically smaller at 7-10% of the overall length, there are of course individuals where these estimates can be way off, but those are the exception, not the rule.
It's been suggested in a previous post that all Westerns can always be visually sexed correctly but this is not 100% accurate. About 10-20% of hatchlings fall into the category of 'tweeners' (in between), those are the individuals that have an indeterminate tail length that is neither female short nor male long. These individuals can also be very difficult to sex until they reach 60-100 grams as some can look more male-ish but after 80-100 grams they will grow into the tail and all of a sudden, what once seemed like a male is now a female. Out of the hundreds of Westerns I've hatched over the last 6 years, I've had about 5 or 6 tweeners and all but one turned out to be females. As hatchlings anybody would have assumed that by visual examination those snakes were more than likely males. I've also been sold "male" hatchlings by experienced breeders that ended up being females once they hit that 100 gram mark. In my experience, more often than not, tweeners often end up being females than males.
Weight is also a very significant difference with males generally between 60-150 grams with 90-100 being the most common while females are usually between 250-800 grams with 300-400 being the most common.
Having said all of that, if your two Westerns are of the same size/weight and you are absolutely positive about the sex of the male, then you should be able to compare the two and see any differences in tail length. If not, wait until they hit 60-80 grams, you should be able to tell by then. 
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles
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RE: Male Or Female? - Rextiles, Sat Dec 29 19:10:51 2012