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Have either of you used popping to sex neonate brbs? I've tried this with bci...and I'm still not that great at it...but I was just curious if there was a reason NOT to use this method on e.c.c.

Thanks, Chris O

P.s. Hi Linda! Long time no talk to...how are the new kids?

Chris,
...I have had a little less than 900 baby Rainbow Boas of which just over 750 were Brazilian Rainbow Boas and I sexed every one of them using a probe. Very occasionally when probing them when they are less than two weeks old a male will pop a hemipene out when I am trying to restrain the tail to insert the probe. I can fairly reliably pop little colubrids but when I try with boids I find that most of them are too muscular in the tail to pop. BTW, whenever I hear anyone claim they can sex baby snakes with 100% accuracy I have to laugh. When I am using a probe and probe a snake deeply enough to say that it I can identify it as a male I think that I am very accurate. When I probe one at a shallower depth so that I identify it as female my accuracy is probably well below 100%. Little snakes are delicate and if you use enough force with a probe to try to get nearer to 100% accuracy you increase the risk of injuring the snake. I once attempted to find a system of counting subcaudal scale rows to sex Rainbow Boas. I tried it with the first hundred or so Rainbow Boas that I owned. What I found was that males generally have more subcaudal scale rows and thus longer tails than females but that there was quite a bit of overlap in the numbers so that it was impossible to accurately sex them with subcaudal scale counts.
Jeff

>>Have either of you used popping to sex neonate brbs? I've tried this with bci...and I'm still not that great at it...but I was just curious if there was a reason NOT to use this method on e.c.c.
>>
>>Thanks, Chris O
>>
>>P.s. Hi Linda! Long time no talk to...how are the new kids?

I agree with you on the 100% accuracy. I have pretty good luck "thumbing." I can usually feel the hemipenes. I try to use all three methods (thumbing or rubbing, probing, and popping). If I come up with the same result all three times I figure it's right...

I actually had a big name breeder missex 3 of 4 animals that I purcahsed from them a couple of years ago. I should have had 1.3, but one of the other "females" is a male and two of the others were missexed, but didn't change the ratio.

Anyways, thanks for the input...

Chris O

Chris,
The only popping I ever did was with a few neonate corns and that was with their breeder's supervision. I attempted to probe some brb's back in Jan and found I couldn't hold them with one hand and probe with the other. No one at the vet clinic where I work would help me hold them and I didn't want any of them to stick something in in my snakes, so I took them and held them for a more experienced person to probe. I need to learn how to do this myself. I haven't attempted to pop any of the brb's.

Linda

The babies are wonderful.Thanks for asking.

np

I have found a Quick and fairly reliable way to sex rainbowboas without popping, probing or magic. This method also works from the day they are born to the day they die and takes just a few seconds once you know what to look for.
YOU WANT TO FEEL THE HEMIPENES…
(This is a statement not a perverted Question…)

Male Snakes have hemipenes (Females obviously do not). At the ends of the hemipenes there are hook like structures to help hold the hemipene in place during copulation. These can be quite intricate and look as if they would also be painful to the female. These take up space at the tip. There are also ligaments that must attach to the inside of the tip of the hemipene (Which is actually the outside of the hemipene when they are at rest inside-out in the male’s tail posterior to the vent….think of an inside out sock). These ligaments attach to muscles…..consequently the same muscles that Jeff just suggested were too strong to allow you to easily pop young rainbowboas…and these muscles run to the toward the tip of the tail and are used to pull the hemipene back into its place after copulation (one wouldn’t want to leave it out to drag in the dust and debris…would they). This ligamentous attachment and the recurved spikes cause the tip of the hemipenes to be larger than the rest of the hemipene “shaft”. YOU CAN FEEL THESE.

That was the biology, here is the trick. Start at the vent, any size, any sex, any age….Try it with known animals until you get a feel for it….Slightly press your finger or thumb against the underside of the tail at the vent and then slide your finger towards the tail. If you do not feel anything, try again. Do this slowly. If it is a male, then you will feel a distinct bump about 10 scales from the vent. If you move your finger even more slowly, then you will feel TWO distinct bumps. These are the tips of the hemipenes and only males will have these bumps. This means that unless the female has an unusual growth in her tail, all animals that have these “bumps” will be males. I would say 99% accurate on males. If you do not feel the bumps then there are a few possibilities. First and most probable……the snake is a girl. Second and somewhat probable….you really do not know what you are doing and I suggest you double check yourself with another method until you can do several litters several times and get the sexes right multiple times without looking at the snakes sex before you pick it up. Third and unlikely (and unlucky)…the snake is a male with hemipenes so small that you cannot detect their presence.

I hope this helps (and I hope that people actually read this post even though I replied to a post a few weeks old…)

I stand by this method and I have found several mistakes after people probed “girls”. This method is also non-invasive, very low stress and who knows…... maybe snakes like it rubbed too.

Sorry about the sick humor, it is nearly 3am and I have been up since 7 am and have to be awake again in less than 5 hours.

This will surely save you time by cutting out 50% of the litter as definite males….Try it and tell me want you think…..BHH
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