Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I thought i would post an embarassing vignette about mistaken sexual identity causing a prolonged delay in breeding.

Background, I bought my first 1.1 dumerils in 1979 from Dick Georgen who lived near Buffalo NY. They grew readily and were my prize snakes. they bred in 1982 and produced 7 perfect babies. The female escaped shortly after "back on feed" and I havent seen her since.

I kept the male more or less as a momento to my early breeding days and he sits back shelved in my snake room, only eating live rats, therefore he stays slender and only eats every few weeks as almost all of my other snakes, mostly GTPs and now dwarf retics eat frozen.

I bought a replacement adult female in 1990. I also hand picked the nicest "male" of F2 (both parents unrelated wild caught animals imported under the species protection act) from Kevin Wright, DVM well known to me and then curator of reptiles at the Phila Zoo at a Hamburg show.
I raised the "male" for these years. I placed "him" with my female who is now enormous by dum standards year after year only half heartedly intending to breed them, as my real focus was first on GTPs and more recently with Dwarf retics. Nothing for over a decade.

The female went on a temporary hunger strike for the first time this past summer so I ended up feeding the "male" a lot more rats than usual.

I placed the two together again this fall and saw no breeding activity and no urate smears on the snakes or the cage paper.

As i was showing my son last night my inverted posturing GTP and two female Kayuadi dwarf retics, we peeked in on the pair of Dums for giggles. The "male" looked like a female developing follicles with a mid body swelling a full week after "his" last meal.

Out come the probes and he as you hopefully have already guessed is a she.

Back shelf retired male is getting a real workout as we speak with two huge fat virgins cozying up to his advances.

Just a reminder that no matter who you buy from, if you plan to breed your new acquisition, always have a confirmatory probing done sooner, or as in my case later...

Winslow

You don't have to probe dumerils. Infact its very easy to hurt them by doing so because they are a short tail boa, and it's not all the accurate. You can tell a male from a female by spurs. Males have them, females don't (in adults they are super super tiny). This is how we sex all of our dumerils, even at birth. And we have never had a complaint that we sold the wrong sex with the dumerils. Just thought this may come in handy. Jason had this happen to him way back when (many many many years ago) when he first got into dumerils. A huge "male" who was like 10-11 years old when he got it, turned out to be a female. He tried to breed it several years with no luck. She was the biggest dumerils I've ever seen in my entire life, she was about 9.5 feet and just huge. She is no longer with us though, I miss her dearly. Anyway, just thought I would pass on this bit of info. Just look for spurs and you'll be all right!

Danni
-----
Jason & Danni
Our Email
Our Website

SMILE SMILE

>>I thought i would post an embarassing vignette about mistaken sexual identity causing a prolonged delay in breeding.
>>
>>Background, I bought my first 1.1 dumerils in 1979 from Dick Georgen who lived near Buffalo NY. They grew readily and were my prize snakes. they bred in 1982 and produced 7 perfect babies. The female escaped shortly after "back on feed" and I havent seen her since.
>>
>>I kept the male more or less as a momento to my early breeding days and he sits back shelved in my snake room, only eating live rats, therefore he stays slender and only eats every few weeks as almost all of my other snakes, mostly GTPs and now dwarf retics eat frozen.
>>
>>I bought a replacement adult female in 1990. I also hand picked the nicest "male" of F2 (both parents unrelated wild caught animals imported under the species protection act) from Kevin Wright, DVM well known to me and then curator of reptiles at the Phila Zoo at a Hamburg show.
>>I raised the "male" for these years. I placed "him" with my female who is now enormous by dum standards year after year only half heartedly intending to breed them, as my real focus was first on GTPs and more recently with Dwarf retics. Nothing for over a decade.
>>
>>The female went on a temporary hunger strike for the first time this past summer so I ended up feeding the "male" a lot more rats than usual.
>>
>>I placed the two together again this fall and saw no breeding activity and no urate smears on the snakes or the cage paper.
>>
>>As i was showing my son last night my inverted posturing GTP and two female Kayuadi dwarf retics, we peeked in on the pair of Dums for giggles. The "male" looked like a female developing follicles with a mid body swelling a full week after "his" last meal.
>>
>>Out come the probes and he as you hopefully have already guessed is a she.
>>
>>Back shelf retired male is getting a real workout as we speak with two huge fat virgins cozying up to his advances.
>>
>>Just a reminder that no matter who you buy from, if you plan to breed your new acquisition, always have a confirmatory probing done sooner, or as in my case later...
>>
>>
>>Winslow
>>