Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is the warranty you should expect when one buys a neonate, sold as a female and after two three year, one finds out its the wrong sex !!!
thank you in advance for your comments,
Joel Pretz

There's no set policy. It's totally up to the individual or business that originally sold the animal. Some sellers may replace it with the proper sex but most likely the replacement may be younger. Others may say, "tough luck, you should have had the sex checked long ago." It totally depends on the seller. If this happened to you the first thing to do is contact them to see what they are willing to do. Of course they'll need to be able to verify the animal in question is the same one they sold. It's a fairly frequent problem because sexing neonates can be tricky to inexperienced people. Many resellers take in animals as one sex and resell as such never even checking to confirm.

I think checking the sex after two or three years is that many years too long. I think you should put yourself in a breeder’s shoes; would you want to take back a boa after 2 or 3 years not know how it was raised? I would expect a seller to rectify a problem as such if reported a month or two after sale but failing to check the sex after that long of a period puts the seller into a situation that is harder to resolve. In my opinion, I would partially return some of the purchase funds or give you a female neonate for free then to take the back a boa. This is just my opinion, maybe too favorable.

I understand what you are saying but, I believe what the breeder told me. But then again I should of check for the sex my self. If you where in this situation, WHAT WOULD YOU DO????
Thank you again,
Joel Pretz

First thing to do is contact the seller. Asking us our opinions isn't going to really help anything since the outcome is between the both of you. To be honest I doubt there's much you can do but live and learn. I guess it depends on the seller at this point. Whenever I get an animal in I sex them within a day.
You should make it policy to do the same from now on. Good luck.