Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi

I’d like to ask for advice on sexing young boas/pythons without using the probes. I live in United Arab Emirates, it's a small country in the Middle East, & I've kept different snakes for the last 7 years. Unfortunatelly I've never had a chance to see anyone probing a snake & thus I am too nervous to hurt a snake to attempt it on my own.

Can you, guys, suggest other more or less reliable ways of sexing young boas/pythons? I am about to visit a reptile dealer selling boa constrictor & python molurus species approx. 6 months old, 60-75 cm (23-30 in) in length, who also does not know the sexes of his snakes.

Thanks for your help.

You might still be able to "pop" them. This means to evert the hemipenes of a male snake by exerting a light amount of pressure on the base of the tail while simultaneously bending the tail slightly backwards to "open" the cloaca. There is a far more detailed article on Dave and Tracy Barkers site (vpi.com) entitled "Determining the Sex of Snakes". You should really read that article it will help you out a lot. Todd

Hi -

If it is Boa constrictor and Python molurus you are most interested in, you should be able to accurately differentiate the sexes just by size of the cloacal spurs, even in young animals. Of course, it helps if you have both males and females to compare side by side!

I can’t resist including the photos below of a spur from an old male Burmese python. I don’t allow him to breed anymore. But I’m here to tell you that in his younger years, when he started digging those evil-looking appendages into the side of a female, she got the message in a hurry.

Sorry, I don't have any 6-month old animals to photograph. Maybe someone else here might post some spur shots, too.

-Joan