The following information should only be performed by an
experienced reptile keeper / breeder. A few
ways to determine the sex of a snake is probing, manual sexing, or putting two snakes temporarily in an enclosure together
to observe their behavior. Do not leave unsupervised during this process. If
the two snakes become combative, it usually means they are males. Probing is a good way to tell the sex. With manual sexing
you can visually see the hemipenes in males.
Again do not perform any of these procedures if you
are not an experienced breeder and or keeper, you can cause physical damage to the snake. Unfortunately I
have seen so called experienced reptile keepers recklessly giving instructions on the internet to a novice on how to manually
sex their snake without informing that if not properly performed can cause harm or damage. Not only is this completely irresponsible
but there could be possible liability involved if the snake is injured during the sexing process.
Some claim that you can
visually see the difference between a male and female by the girth of their tail or even the size of their spurs, this method
is unreliable and can be inaccurate. Females as they become older generally have larger girth than males. So in appearance
their tales would appear to be stouter, again this is not always the case.
I personally manually sex the snake first before I probe them. When you are dealing with sub-adults
/ adults manually sexing becomes very difficult. At this point probing the snake may be necessary. It is safer if this procedure
is performed by two people when handling adult ball pythons.
So I hope some of the information provided has been helpful. Just maybe it has prevented an inexperienced individual
from accidentally causing harm to their snake.
