gender

i remeber reading that you can tell what gender a BP is by looking at its tail has anyone else heard this?

and if so what are the indications of male or female?

its not very accurate. a short tale means male, while longer is female

The ball python manual has photos of both, side by side for comparison.

And there are at least two threads already where I've either posted the photo from the book for comparison, or posted a link to the thread where the photo is posted. Have a look for yourself.

could u give me the link?

just a second ill find it 4 u....

i have another question about gender. i was holding apollo the other day, and as he was going through my hands, i could feel some bump by his anal spurs, which im assuming are his male parts. is that what it was?? because when i poke around at Pandora, there's no bumps. could that possibly be a way to tell the difference??

well i dont know about that but her is that link

http://www.ball-pythons.net/index.ph...n+manual#20683

so according to that pic Monty is a she not a he

oh well but its not 100% acuarate right? then the only acurate way is probing

yes that is true... see i saw that first and i assumed mine was a female and then i got her probed andit turns out she was, so i think its pretty acurite but not 100%

Probing and "popping" are the accurate ways to determine sex. I DO NOT recommend a novice try and probe, without getting training from a professional, you can damage the internal tissue. That being said, here is a link to an informative site about Probing Popping:

http://www.pythons.com/probing.html

That site is a bit confusing. They stated that popping was "safer" than probing, but I have always heard that the opposite is true. In any case, I guess it's better for a professional to do it, rather than someone who has never done it; or at least watch a pro do it before you attempt it yourself.

I guess you could say popping is technically safer than probing. If you push too hard probing you could go too deep and puncture membranes.

Popping is pretty easy and reliable to do on hatchling ball pythons. Sometimes males can trick you, but you just have get a good technique. With older ball pythons probing is the best way.

All in all, probing is the most reliable way of determining the sex of a ball python of any age. But both methods can be subject to error.

-adam