Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is the best safest and easiest way to sex hatchling western hogs? I just hate to pop them and i dont want to get tagged trying to probe them? any pointers?

IMO they are to small to probe. I would not probe an animal under 14 inches. Popping is your best bet. If you don't like to do it, then take to a vet to get sexed.
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Jenea
Guardian Reptiles

"When your memories are bigger than your dreams, you're headed for the grave" Author unknown

i sex all my baby western hogs visually by tail size. that seems to work 99% of the time for me.

joe schmidt

Does anyone have pics of a male vs. female baby western hognose tail? I have a baby that has not been sexed yet and I don't have anything to compare the size of the tail to.

Do males have a noticibly longer tail?

yeah they do, except maybe hatchlings? That is one of the cool things about hogs, they show sexual dimorphism. If you do an internet search I know I've found pics of examples.

I have no problem popping any snake except hogs. I am not sure if it's my short fat fingers or what. Last year I decided to raise a couple sure females up, I usually just sell everything wholesale so I didn't need to sex them before. Well I tried popping them with a couple buddies of mine because I was giving a few away. These guys have been in the hobby for a long time and we all concurred female. Well guess what WRONG. Short little stubby tails on them and could not pop them for the life of me.I have temporalis and syspila and I have no problems with them at all. Just my experience. I will be putting forth more effort this time.

Agreed. It is usually very easy to just look at the tail and tell the sex, especially if you have both sexes to compare.The males tail will be considerably longer. I have never probed or popped hognose babies. Visual is by far the best in my opinion.

Here are a couple of quick pics I took to show the difference. These pics are about what I normally see. Female on top, male on bottom. Sorry for the blurry pic. It's hard to hold them down on ther backs and keep them still.

that dudes got a super long tail.