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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Hi Mark. Interesting post. First let me say that if you have two people (one of them experienced) to do the probing, it is not very stressful at all, especially with small snakes. One person holds the snake, while the other has two hands to slide the properly prepared probe into the cloaca. Done this way, it shouldn't take more than two minutes to perform and get an accurate result. When I was a very young kid (under 5), my mom was a big fan of the rectal method of temperature taking. Now it wasn't exceptionally pleasant, but it was not painful and didn't leave any mental scars either!! My guess is, it would be the same for a snake.

With some of my snakes I do have hopes that they will breed in the future so it's imperative to know what I have. With the juvies it's not so important and by the time they are mature I usually have a pretty good idea of gender anyway. But when adding adult animals to a collection it's important to know for sure the gender.

Honestly, I find it kind of fun to look at a juvie, take a stab at the sex and then wait until they are old enough to take a good look at the tail base and/or have them probed to see if I was right. After almost 30 years, I've gotten pretty good at guessing. So bottom line is, it's up to you, but if you choose to have your animals probed, make sure it's by someone who has lots of experience and also be sure to wait until they are at least a year old to lessen the chance of accidental injury during the probing (pushing the probe too far in).

>>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
>>-----
>>----------------------------------------------
>>My personal website: www.antegy.com
>>----------------------------------------------
>>My Kingsnake.com Picture Galleries
>>
>> - 1.0.0 Labyrinth Burmese Python Gallery
>> - 0.1.0 Suriname Boa Gallery
>> - 0.1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake Gallery
>> - 1.0.0 Pueblan Milksnake Gallery
>> - 0.1.0 Trinket Ratsnake Gallery
>>----------------------------------------------
>>My photography on photo.net
>>----------------------------------------------
>>Me on myspace.com

The only times I could see it is relevant are -
1. You plan on breeding the snake or
2. You plan on selling/trading the snake to someone else who might want to know.

BTW - most experienced herpers can give you a pretty good idea about the gender of a snake by just looking at the tail shape, particularly an adult ratsnake!
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Chris Harrison

People who choose to house their snakes together (even though it's not a great idea to begin with) will want to make sure that they don't put a male/female combo in the same cage if they don't want them to breed. This will be especially true with females that are small enough to risk injury and even death due to egg binding.

Of course the smart answer is to give each snake its own home. Then if you are not breeding or selling, you can wait until the snake is large enough to make a pretty good educated guess regarding gender. As you pointed out, this is not too tough at all with many of the ratsnakes. Duffy

It's also easier to resale a snake if you know the sex...Paul