Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I always heard it was difficult to sex baby bloods and after getting four babies last year I found out why.

I started to probe them to verify I got two pair but these guys were impossible to do ... they would immediately and strongly curl their short tails to where I thought they'd injure themselves with the probe inside that I stopped. I couldn't hold their tails straight while probing - never experianced that with any other snake before.

Due to space and more important projects , I now decided to sell these 9 month old guys but want to be sure of the sexes before selling as pairs. Do any of you know the subcaudal count for males and females bloods ?

P. brongersmai, P. breitensteini and P. curtus subcaudal scale counts for probing are as follows: Males 9 scales, Females 3-4.
For future reference you can refer to "The Reproductive Husbandry of Pythons and Boas" by Richard A. Ross MD, MPH and Gerald Marzec. Every boidae keeper should have this in their library. For me it was like getting the Sears Christmas Wish Book, LOL

Thanks Rich but I was thinking about counting the subcaudals on the entire tail instead of probing. I found probing bloods very difficult ... they were just too powerful even as babies to do by myself. The tails are too short for me to hold straight and when they flex hard with the probe in them I'm concerned about injury.

So I thought I'd just do a comparison subcaudal count and thought someone might know what the numbers were for male and females.

It is fairly hard to sex a blood by yourself...is there not someone, perhaps a fellow reptile keeper or family member that can hold the head-end of the blood while you work the tail, at 9 months, it should still be fairly easy with 2 ppl...
sorry, dont know the scale count..

gvg

I do not believe that there is a difference in the scale counts. Nor have I heard anyone using this method for determining sex without probing.

While most pitvipers have sexually dimorphic subcaudal scale counts,blood pythons don't (unfortunately.)

When they are little they are easy to "pop", but once they get some size you have to probe them to accurately determine sex. Spur size and tail size are deceptive in many specimens. Even observing behavior can be inaccurate, as some males combat and some don't. Even more confusing, sometimes dominant males will copulate with subordinant males.

In order to probe medium and large bloods, we put them in snake bags and pull their tails out. It's then pretty easy to probe them.

Use a big diameter probe, as female blood pythons often have well-developed hemipenial homologs and a small probe will go in as deep as in a male. Male bloods have big hemipenes and a big probe will go right in.

It can be done single-handedly, but sexing bloods is best done by two people.

Good luck...

Thanks to all for the responses and suggestions.