Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everybody, I've got a bit of an issue and I'd really appreciate it if you guys with much more experience in carpets could help me out. (Warning--this could be long!)

If you scroll down a few posts you'll see the photos I posted of a JCP I got this weekend that was sold to me as female. I took her to my reptile vet for a check up and also had him probe her to be certain, but we're not exactly sure if it's really male or female.

From everything I've read and what many people have said, females tend to be the larger ones, right? Or is this just a common misconception?

The guy who had this one before me bought it as a baby, and fed it incredibly slowly, only once every 6 weeks, and it reached nearly 8 feet by the time it was 2 (it's now 4) It's also incredibly thick and weighs almost 10 lbs.

The vet probed it today, and went about 9 scales deep. I've heard that males can go a lot deeper than this, but I really don't know what the average is for most females. I'd really appreciate any input you guys have, I'd like to figure this out so I can give it an appropriate name and figure out what my breeding plans for the future will be.

Thanks!
Becky
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--SneakySnakesINC--

1.0 Sonoran Gopher Snake(Oshy)
0.1 Jungle Carpet Python (Calypso)
1.0 Macklot's Python (Pixel)
0.1 Ball Python (Nagini)
0.1 Yellow Rat Snake (Ember)
1.0 Albino Black Rat Snake (Vegas)
1.0 Smooth Earth Snake (Little Zuni)
1.0 Citrus X red phase bearded dragon (Twyman)
1.1 Oriental Fire Bellied Toads (Spott and Dott)
0.2 American Toads (Bertha and Ethel)
1.0 SE Fine Lined Skink (BeBo)
0.1 American Bullfrog (Tootsie)
2.0 Equines (Sherlock the draft and Cleatis the donkey)
4.0 Felines (Caesar Ray, Pharoh, Phoenix, Boomer)
1.0 WC boyfriend (Ryan)

I am in no way an expert (don't even own any carpets), but a google search yielded the following (from http://www.aussiepythons.com/forum/general-herps/black-and-gold-jungles-68999):

"The most definite way to determine the sex of Jungle’s is by cloacal probing. An experienced person easily does this method of sexing. Care should be taken as damage can be done to the animal (hatchlings in particular) if done incorrectly. Females probe to a depth of 3 - 6 subcaudals and males to a depth of 8 -13 subcaudals. Both sexes have spurs though male spurs are more pronounced and often visibly larger."

Based on that, 9 subcaudals makes it male. Beautiful snake, BTW - amazingly bright coloration!
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Thanks for the reply!

That was the website I was looking for but couldn't find! I knew I had read that page before. Based on that, it's just a super huge male. My vet was pretty sure it was a male as well. Looks like he's getting a name change
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--SneakySnakesINC--

1.0 Sonoran Gopher Snake(Oshy)
1.0 Jungle Carpet Python (Taboo)
1.0 Macklot's Python (Pixel)
0.1 Ball Python (Nagini)
0.1 Yellow Rat Snake (Ember)
1.0 Albino Black Rat Snake (Vegas)
1.0 Smooth Earth Snake (Little Zuni)
1.0 Citrus X red phase bearded dragon (Twyman)
1.1 Oriental Fire Bellied Toads (Spott and Dott)
0.2 American Toads (Bertha and Ethel)
1.0 SE Fine Lined Skink (BeBo)
0.1 American Bullfrog (Tootsie)
2.0 Equines (Sherlock the draft and Cleatis the donkey)
4.0 Felines (Caesar Ray, Pharoh, Phoenix, Boomer)
1.0 WC boyfriend (Ryan)

Happy to help - normally I just lurk this board for the pretty pics, but I saw that and did a quick search and was like, "ooh, I can be useful!"
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear