Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi.

I bought a female hog about half a year ago, she arrived at fifteen grams and her tail looked more stout than my male's at the time. Now she's at least triple that weight and yet her tail has lost that dramatic "dip" in shape that females usually have.

It is not a feeding issue, she eats like there's no tomorrow every four days or so and has grown much faster than my other snakes.

My male seems to take an interest in her but that proves nothing, I have not noticed hemipenes or the like, she looks like a tough one to get a gender on now. Cannot take pics at the moment, any advice? Does counting subcaudal help in this species? Thank you very much.

BTW, the male only gets faint scents of her which is what I meant, and they are rarely in each others' presence, no breeding yet obviously. Thanks in advance. I lurk around here and love you guys.

Hi, there is absolutely no problem determing the gender of hogs, even as hatchlings. There is a dramatic differene in tail lenght and build. Again, even with hatchlings. After they reach a foot, its so dramatic. So if you have a pair, they would be very very different. Best of luck

First of all, thank you sir.

She did have that short, stubby telltale female tail and it's thinned out as she's grown. Maybe I should increase her intake.

Otherwise she is happy, chubby, well over a foot long, just seems to look like a boy now without many juvenile female pics to compare to.

Cheers.

If you could post a decent photo of the underside of the snake's tail, then many people here could tell you the gender.

Tim

Third Eye Herp

That's what I can't do at the moment, but thanks anyway

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

Hello Troy, that is exactly what I wanted to hear! When you mention tail length versus total length there's no doubt about it, she's a she. The tail's length is female, its shape is not. Guess her chunk has to catch up to her length and grow into her tail as you say

The male is a sure male, but about 75 grams empty.

I will offer her more food to see if it makes a difference, she is by far our most active snake and must go through her food too fast, thank you very much for your help!

When determining gender in snakes, there are several methods that are required. With hogs, its normally very simple to determine gender visually. But that is not the only way. To evert the hemipenes by "popping" them is also very easy with hogs, as is saline solution(vets do this)(biologists do this when preserving specimens) probing also works.

With questionable individuals, the use of all three may be required to be accurate.

The thickness(chunky) has nothing to do with determining gender, it has a lot to do with current health conditions.

This year I found many large adult females that were very very thin. Also the fattest adult I found was a male. Yes, normally under equal conditions, females are stocky.

Probably the best approach is, go find someone who has a lot of hogs and look at them, that way, you can become experienced. Best of luck

Hello again

I've popped other snakes before, not hogs unfortunately. I would hate to hurt her.

Exactly, I think she may be too thin at this point and will give her more food. Is there any correlation between head size and tail length that would estimate gender with both hefty and thin individuals?

I am in the graphics industry, obsessing over visual cues is my game and yet after seeing thousands of hog photos I worry about this. LOL. I definitely trust her breeder, of course.

Thank you and happy new year!

Good luck, I hope it works out to be a pair. Happy New Years