Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone,

My question here is about knowing the gender of your pet snake(s). I have five snakes in all, of which I am only sure of the gender of two of them (my adult burm, and my adult boa). The other three are young (a kingsnake, a milksnake, and a ratsnake), and so could still very well be probed to determine for certain just which gender they are.

But I've heard that probing isn't the nicest thing you can do to a snake (an understatement there, of course). So I wonder, how important is it to know? I understand of course the implication it has on naming the animal, but I don't name my pets (I'll explain that in another thread if you're interested as to why). And I don't intend to ever breed any of my snakes. But I can't help but have a compelling desire to know, if for no other reason than to just be able to correctly address any of them as either a him or a her.

So, is that enough of a reason to have the snake probed? Or do you feel it isn't worth the stress it would put on the animal?

Whatever your thoughts/opinions are, please share.

Thanks,
- Mark
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Mark, in truth the stress probing would put on an animal is minimal, if one has had experience with it. As for simply knowing the sex to address them properly just go by their attitude , although I'm sure the ladys in here will give me fits for that comment LOL. If breeding is something you don't intend to do then probing isn't necessary, but I don't think it's really more annoying than a guy gettin' his prostate probed :|.

Quig

It doesnt matter much to me...i have probes and still dont know what one of my snakes is...

Mark,

In your situation, the only benefit i can see in having your burmese probed, is to try and roughly gauge the approx adult size of the snake. Obviously females will get bigger than males, for me it helps to know that as early as possible.

As Far as the actual probing goes, i have found, in my experience, that the snake shows no bad attitude after being probed, which most people seem to expect. Dont get me wrong they are not always "willing" but once its over and done with, they seem as glad as i do!

Phil

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1.0 Albino Burmese Python, , 1.0 Giant Day Gecko, 1.0 Gargoyle Gecko, 0.1 Border Collie, 1.0 Syrian Hamster

OK, how do you guys do that scroll thing at the bottom of your posts??!?!!

When logged in, and in a forum click on the "user Prefs" tab.

Type in what you want as your signature. Next to the window where you type your text is a link to "tools and toys" click on that for the different effects you can use

Enjoy and have fun!!!!
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1.0 Albino Burmese Python, , 1.0 Giant Day Gecko, 1.0 Gargoyle Gecko, 0.1 Border Collie, 1.0 Syrian Hamster

Cool, thanks I think I'll play with that later. Mamma got me doin' outside stuff right now

Quig

I would have to agree with them. If you don't want to breed, their realy is no reason you have to know.Some like to know just to know and that is fine. If done right there is no harm to the snake so it's one of them things that is realy up to you.

Have a good day!