Popping: Easy peesy???

Its a thing that I have been actively trying to avoid learning how to do because probing feels so much safer to me, however, my first breeding season is here and I need to know if one of my males is producing sperm and of course the only way to know that is to look for the sperm plugs, hence I have to learn how to pop.

The issue is that I don't know any other snake keepers and as a small woman I don't feel safe asking for a strangers help online, so my only alternative is ole Youtube University. I watched so many videos, but they all looked so forceful with hard tail bending and pressing so hard their fingertips change color and I've read stories about people accidentally hurting their snakes. I almost just kinda gave up, until I saw Scott Reader (Mutation Creation Canada) do a tutorial. I was dumbfounded! It looked like the hemi peens were just jumping right out of the tail with just a flex of his thumb.
He could even do it one handed! I'm pretty eager to try it out, i'll probably update this thread with the result.


P.s. heres the video if you're curious https://youtu.be/eI26REv4MOM

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Originally Posted by Joykoins

Its a thing that I have been actively trying to avoid learning how to do because probing feels so much safer to me, however, my first breeding season is here and I need to know if one of my males is producing sperm and of course the only way to know that is to look for the sperm plugs, hence I have to learn how to pop.

The issue is that I don't know any other snake keepers and as a small woman I don't feel safe asking for a strangers help online, so my only alternative is ole Youtube University. I watched so many videos, but they all looked so forceful with hard tail bending and pressing so hard their fingertips change color and I've read stories about people accidentally hurting their snakes. I almost just kinda gave up, until I saw Scott Reader (Mutation Creation Canada) do a tutorial. I was dumbfounded! It looked like the hemi peens were just jumping right out of the tail with just a flex of his thumb.
He could even do it one handed! I'm pretty eager to try it out, i'll probably update this thread with the result.


P.s. heres the video if you're curious https://youtu.be/eI26REv4MOM

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Popping is not hard on the snake once you know the propper way to do it. You have to be firm but gentle. It does take some practice and I would not recommend practicing on just one hatchling. Practive the techniques in the videos and adjust as needed for you. Have several hatchlings you can practive on and keep the sessions short to not put to much stress on the animals. Practice makes perfect :)

Once you get the feel for it, it's really not difficult or hard on the snakes. The problem is, until you feel how much pressure it takes to get a hatchling male to pop, you're not going to know if you're sexing a female or just not using enough pressure. They don't take a lot of pressure as hatchlings so just go gentle on each one, if you don't get any males to pop, do another round using slightly more pressure until one of the males pop. It would actually be best if you could practice on known males so you aren't trying too hard on a female that's not going to pop no matter how much pressure you apply. Now once you have a known male, just practice on him every once in a while, you'll learn the amount of pressure it takes and then you can practice on the rest. The larger males are going to take a bit more pressure and you'll need to be pretty good at it because you really need to do it just right or they can hold it in pretty good. Obviously if your checking for sperm plugs the male must be a bit larger than a hatchling but I would just start being very gentle with the hatchlings because they are easier and then when you get the feel for it, just work your way up to the larger males. Good luck!

The only problem with a video vs someone showing you in person and helping you is that you have no sense of pressure with a video, and that is usually lead to misexing the animal, I have seen it many time in people I have taught how to pop they watch videos but did not apply enough pressure.