how old do corns have to be to sex them?? and is there any other way to tell if they are a boy or girl besides bringing them to a pet shop??

I read somewhere that you can take a guess by the length of their tail. Females having a abruptly tapered tail where males have slowly tapered tails. Not sure how true that is though. If you want to be sure just have a breeder or vet or someone who knows how sex it.

i see i think when it gets older i will just take it to a pet shop just to be sure

you can "pop" them
thats manully everting the hemepenes with your thumb
rather someone that knows what theyre doing can
but only when theyre young as males can learn to controll their hemepenes, or if someone could just do it wrong and think you have a female

i personally would bring it to a vet over a pet store. I would just be very worried about somebody at a pet store not knowing what they are doing and injuring the snake. Anyway the other way is the short abrubtly tapered tail is female and the longer, less abrubtly tapered tail is a male. If i remember correctly its if there are less than 130 scales after the vent and its a female, more than and its a male. but i can never remember quite the right scale count.

that seems like a lot
anyone know where i could find pictures to compare the tail taper of male and female

a picture on the two differences would be nice........so there is no certant age one which you can tell?? or am i misunderstanding

I'm pretty sure theres no age...born male or female like you or me. But hey, I could be wrong.

Corns are born male or female, and the most reliable methods are popping or probing. Both get someone who knows what they are doing and has experiance, like a breeder or a reptile vet. I would not take it to a pet store to have them sex it, as someone said it is very possible they do not know what they are doing.

As for the tapered tails, I do not know which way it is but I do remember seeing a pic of 6 snakes, 3 male 3 female in the corn snake guide. I could not tell the difference even though they told you how they alternated and which sex was which snake. The scale count is possible however there are ranges. Under a certain it is probably this sex, over another number probably the other, and inbetween well it could be either. But that isn't an exact way to tell.

The only 100% definitive method of sexing is to "pop" the hemipenes. The next would be probing, which is 99% accurite. (I say that because i recently read that there have been a few instances where the females probing depth was long enough that it was mistaken as male. But this cant be any more than a 1 in 100000 chance of happening)

If you want to try the scale cout don't try to count the actual scales. get a shed and count it up.

And in regaurds to the age. They do have to be a certain age for probing and "popping". If they are too old when you try to pop them it will injure the snake and if they are too young when you try to probe it I don't think that there is enough difference between male and females at that age to tell them apart.

The only 100% definitive method of sexing is to "pop" the hemipenes. The next would be probing, which is 99% accurite. (I say that because i recently read that there have been a few instances where the females probing depth was long enough that it was mistaken as male. But this cant be any more than a 1 in 100000 chance of happening)

If you want to try the scale cout don't try to count the actual scales. get a shed and count it up.

And in regaurds to the age. They do have to be a certain age for probing and "popping". If they are too old when you try to pop them it will injure the snake and if they are too young when you try to probe it I don't think that there is enough difference between male and females at that age to tell them apart.

thanks for all your help guys when it gets big enough i will call around and take it to a shop that knows what they are doing.

Not to be harsh, but if you don't know what you're talking about you shouldn't speak on the subject.

The ONLY way to be 100% positive of the sex is by probing. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about this. Popping is not 100%, not even close. The depth of the probe has no bearing on whether or not the snake is a male or female. It is about the 'feel' inside the snake. Females dead end with no give, males are spongy. Depth can be a factor, but it is not the way to probe.

Many breeders 'pop' their hatchlings only to probe them a year later when being moved to bigger tubs only to find out their 'pop' job was wrong. Clearly this happens more in females than males. If you pop a male as a male, well then it's a male. So yes, if you know what you're doing popping a male is 100%. The problems lie with the females, as just because it didn't pop doesn't automatically make it a female.

Not to be "harsh" but whats the big deal about posting things even if you're not 100% sure? Its a forum therefore these are discussions with differing opinions and ideas.

Sorry calas im just going off what i have read, not personal experience. And from what i have read when done correctly poping exposes the hemipenes on males and is a definitive form of sexing. Also based only from what i have read is that when probing, the probe goes farther with males than females and with some individual female snakes the probe went in far enough that it was mistaken as a male.

Just passing along little bits from articles and stuff. Thanks for the correction though.

Well as far as probing goes---that's why you don't go by depth. Many females will probe deep enough to be males, but have the abrupt 'hitting a wall' feeling. That's why you have to go by probe.

Yes, if you pop a hemipenis the snake is clearly a male. But what if you don't? It's not guaranteed that the snake is a female. Sure, I can accurately sex males without a problem, but things that pop 'females' are not always females.

Ok. The more i know. lol I was only thinking about when the popping shows the hemipenis not when it doesn't. Oops.