sexing a corn?

We went to the pet supply shop, here in town (where we bought our albino corn) to have it sexed. He pulled it out and said "male" and stuck it back on his enclosure. He said males have long thin tails. So my question is
1) Do they not need to be probed like balls?
2)what sort of tail do females have? (maybe a bit sarcastic, but actually asking)

Thanks

Probing is just one method that works (best with snakes that are small, or don't have spurs). If it's a baby then you need to probe or pop it, adults are easier to eyeball, especially with balls since they have prolific anal spurs. Males have long spurs and females have very small spurs.

As for eyeballing corn snakes, females will have a tail that tapers off quickly behind the vent, whereas males will taper off slowly and be much longer. If your corn is a decent size and you can see yourself that his tail is fairly long and tapers slowly, then it's probably a male.

Does the same hold true for all snakes or just corns?

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Originally Posted by Hulihzack

Probing is just one method that works (best with snakes that are small, or don't have spurs). If it's a baby then you need to probe or pop it, adults are easier to eyeball, especially with balls since they have prolific anal spurs. Males have long spurs and females have very small spurs.

As for eyeballing corn snakes, females will have a tail that tapers off quickly behind the vent, whereas males will taper off slowly and be much longer. If your corn is a decent size and you can see yourself that his tail is fairly long and tapers slowly, then it's probably a male.

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Uum not all ball python males have long spurs :colbert:.I had a huge female and she had huge spurs but she laid eggs lol.So you can not determine sex by the size of the spurs ;).

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Originally Posted by ChristinaP

Does the same hold true for all snakes or just corns?

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i believe that it can be used to determine sex in Hognoses as well.

Yes some myths are that you can tell a snakes gender by it's anal spurs, tail width, tail size, the snakes over all size, etc. The only way to be sure of the true sex of any snake is to take it to a knowledgeable vet or snake enthusiast to have it probed or popped. Please do not try to probe or pop a snake by yourself; you can critically injure it by doing it wrong.

oh yeah, not something I would have attempted.

Thanks for the advice guys!

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Originally Posted by lillyorchid

Yes some myths are that you can tell a snakes gender by it's anal spurs, tail width, tail size, the snakes over all size, etc. The only way to be sure of the true sex of any snake is to take it to a knowledgeable vet or snake enthusiast to have it probed or popped. Please do not try to probe or pop a snake by yourself; you can critically injure it by doing it wrong.

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Spot on advice.

There's too much variance to accurately sex a corn by just looking at its tail. Probing or popping are the best ways. With hatchling corns, they're too small to safely probe IMO, so popping is the best in that situation.

On the flip side, unlike some adult male bps, adult corns can't really be popped, so once you have an adult, you really need to probe it.