Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I want to get your opinion on sexing greens. I am really questioning my female green. I have had her since shortly after her birth (assuming she was indeed born in captivity. She refused food for the first 7 months of her life and was a VERY stubborn feeder for at least 7 months after that (eating snakes, grocery chicken, etc).

She is now around 6-6.5 ft. and 5035 g. at 3.5 years old. It appears the spurs are completely recessed. It is very hard to examine them, but they seem to be covered by a hard, dark scale as well. And trying to get at these things caused a huge mess.

Scott Michaels made a whole hearted effort to try and probe this snake at every angle and could not come up with this being a male. However, even though Scott has probed more snakes than anyone I know, young greens can be very hard.

It would seem obvious this snake is a female given all the sexing information...but she is 3.5 years and only 6.5' and 5035 g. Does that seem possible?

This snake has become an excellent feeder as of recent. In the last year she has more than doubled her weight.

I put down an edited copy of my feeding records. If you could take a look and give me your opinion on this, that would be great. I do record all refusals as well and make notes on how the food was offered, but I deleated all that info for convenience on here.

Thanks Kelly and I look forward to your feedback!

11-07-05 9 pm weighed 1933g
(11-08-05) 1 f/t (90-100g) chick scented rat (3:45 am)
(11-13-05) 1 f/t (45g) chick & f/t (125g) rat tied to (45g) chick (2:30 am)
(12-28-05) Offered 3 f/t (111-126g) rats – Took 2 (12:00 am)
(12-30-05) Offered 4 f/t (60-80g) rats - Took 3(3:00 am)
(1-10-06) 3 f/t (42 g) rats and 2 f/t (33 g) rats (10:00 pm)
(1-14-06) O 1 f/t (32 g) rat – T (1:45 am)
(1-15-06) 1 f/t (326 g) rat (12:35 am)
(1-19-06) 1 f/t (270 g) rat (3:15 am)
(2-3-06) 1 f/t (261-281 g) rat (10:00 pm)
(3-8-06) 1 f/t (215-266 g) rat (2:00 am)
(3-28-06) 1 f/t (261g) rat (9:55 pm)
(4-11-06) 1 f/t (248g) rat (10:15 pm)
(4-23-06) 1 f/t (299-355g) rat (1:15 am)
(5-05-06) 1 f/t (484g) rat (1:00 am)
(5-20-06) 1 f/t (377g) rat (12:25 am)
(7-2-06) 1 f/t (375g) rat (10:00 pm)
(7-24-06) 1 f/t (235g) rat (10:00 pm)
FEEDING RECORDS INCOMPLETE FROM 7-24-06 through 9-11-06
(8-4-06) 1 f/t (517g) rat – T (9:17 pm)
(9-17-06) 1 f/t (527g) rat (1:00 to 3:00 am)
(10-4-06) 7 f/t (45-75g) rats (8:45 pm)
(10-11-06) 2 f/t (145-165g) rats (8:45 pm)
(10-22-06) 3 f/t (45-75g) rats (10:45 pm)
(10-30-06) 1 f/t (33-51g) & 3 f/t (52-65g) rats(5:45 pm)
11-11-06 weighed 5035 grams, in shed

Hey E4, glad to hear from you again. From your description of the spur situation, this definitely sounds like a female. The spurs of a female at this age would not be easily seen without digging around a little bit to expose them. A 6 foot male at this age would have obvious external spurs without having to move any scales.

Her food intake over the last year as been fair, but definitely not anywhere near a heavy feeding schedule. If over her first year to year and a half she was feeding not at all or very lightly, and the rest to the end of 2005 was like the last couple of months of 2005, I would expect her to be smaller than usual. It looks like she has fed fairly well over the last 9 to 10 months and this is confirmed by her weight gain. The other thing the recent growth measurements are showing us is that her growth in length has really slowed and she is just putting on mass. This is to be expected as well, as the growth trajectory of greens slows significantly around year 4, regardless of their length at that point. From her life feeding history, I would probably expect her to be in the 6 to 8 foot range at this point in time. She is at the lower end of this range, so she is not really all that small considering her feeding history. As you know, greens metabolisms are slower than other boids, and growth will be slower than would been seen with other large boid species on a similar restricted food intake. I would be very interested to know how her growth rate does progress over the next several years now that her food intake has significantly increased. Thanks again for sharing the information.

Kelly

Her spurs seem almost non existant. But you can see indentation where they were and when you dig around...they can be found (at least one). Very tiny.

People keep telling me she is stunted. I know they are just giving me a hard time, but it was making me second guess the sexing.

I will keep you updated on the growth.