Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For the most part I don't have any trouble sexing hatchling hogs just by looking at their tails. However, occasionally I get one whose tail seems to be intermediate. It tappers like a female but is longer than most females making it very difficult to eye ball. Anyone care to comment on this? Is there a better way? I appreciate anyone's response on this.

Hi Stu, I work in the field with hogs and some in captivity. So far for me, those turn out male. And yes, they occur to a certain percentage.

Usually the females tail is quite short and stubby where as the males is quite long. Females will have 30 rows of scales after the vent and males 40

What is your count on the one you are looking at? Just curious....photo?

That's not the question, when looking at numbers of neonate hogs, there are a few that are tweeners. Its the tweeners that are problematical. As I said, I have raised a couple and they fairly quickly developed male traits.

In your case, what would you call one with 35 SC's?

I may try to post a pic but it may pose a challenge due to size. I only have 3 out of more than 60 hatchlings this year that I have doubts about. They started off looking female but now I'm not sure . I have looked at hundreds and most are easily distinguishable. When do you think it's safe to probe and is that effective?

Hi Stu, I am no expert with hogs, but been doing this stuff a long time. While hogs are without question, very dimorphic where gender is concerned, there are tweeners.

When I determine gender, I use all methods, not one, to evert, to probe and visually(scale count, tail length,etc) With all snakes, I like them to harden up first, usually a few days after the first shed. I am not sure how well probing will work with hatchling tweener hogs, as when everted, they have tiny tiny tiny hemipenes. So I imagine they will not probe too deeply either.

This is a common problem with varanids, most are physically female when they hatch, and males change from that in a matter of days, months or many months later. Turtles do that as well.

They grow out of this tweener stage pretty quick, a matter of a few weeks to a month or two.

This year, I collected a hatchling axanthic, that was a tweener, and I really wanted a male, it is growing out to be a male.

Wow! What a lucky find!

I work mostly with milks and graybands so sexing neonates is usually and easily accomplished by everting. For the most part hogs are easy just visually. It's just a few really give me a hard time. I don't want to have to keep them too long just to be sure but I can't guarantee their sex unless I know for sure. Makes it hard to sell them unless I kbnow. Here's a pic of one tweener. It's looking more male now than it did at hatching.

Looks Male to me bud!

Looks are deceiving. Impossible to be sure just by looking at tail on the in betweeners. Mike Bodner www.chriscolubrids.com

pic of another tweener

Another male, send me that one, hahahahahahahahahaha.

Stu, while finding that axanthic was indeed lucky, I found 8 of them but I worked my butt off. Maybe seven, the first one I did not check its belly and it may have been normal. I am doing some(lots of time) field work with hogs and other reptiles in the same habitat. They are sort of a side deli cup project. While they are indeed visual axanthics, I hope to prove them out in the next year or so. Interestingly, there are four color and pattern types of hogs in the area and I have seen axanthics of all four color phases.
Its very interesting to me to see how wild morphs work.

Mike is right, but it does appear male now. Its also no where near a hatchling now. At this stage, everting is reasonable as well as probing.

I bet when it first hatched, it was confusing. Anyway Stu, you can send it to me/my son, as we have an albino female.

Trade you for an axanthic?

hahahahahahaha, sorry cannot do trades, I am in az. so the only thing I can do is gift them.

I hope to establish the line in captivity, I made a vow a very long time ago to not take animals out of nature, unless I am going to work hard of them in captivity.

If I am lucky enough to produce axanthic offspring, you know, they prove to be genetic. Then I will consult with game and fish and see what the possibilities are. I plan to talk to them in the spring. I have worked with permits in the past and do not want to jeopardize the future of that.

As of now, I am allowed to gift. But then, I have not produced any yet. So its a bit premature at the moment. I have a couple of folks in mine to gift them to and it will be their choice as to what to do with them.

I have my own ideas about this, of course I would gift a few to friends in state. But I feel that if breeders are getting them to make money, then they should have to pay for them. Only I cannot be the person who gets paid. So that is part of the problem want to address with G&F.

As one who works with ethology, I want to discuss what gifting means to G&F, hahahahahahahahahaha as its normal for adults to give gifts, but in reality, hope/expect to receive gifts back. hahahahahaha

Again, its premature, but anyone have ideas or experience with this? as of now, its just fun to think about.

i'll gift you one back!

Female!