Male or female spurs?

[Oliver_the_BP]

Hi!

My ball python, Oliver, is around 8 months old.

I don't care much about his sex since I'm a beginner reptile owner(he's my first snake) and I wont be breeding, but I am curious to see what his sex is without going to the vet and probing him.

Even though he isn't full grown, I'm still wondering if his spurs are female length or male. They seem pretty short, even though hes only 8 months. Definitely not long enough to clip onto a female for breeding, so I think he's female.

I wasn't 100% able to get a great picture of his spurs, but I have a few that might work.

Thanks for your suggestions!

(ignore his sausage butt in some of the pictures, tonight was his poop night so hes all cleared out now)

https://ibb.co/n7GCWDL
https://ibb.co/XbFQjFL
https://ibb.co/hFLdyQL
https://ibb.co/r6XbLjc

[Luvyna]

It's really hard to say judging by spurs, I've seen males with really short spurs. Maybe the full-grown size will be a slightly better indicator but even so without probing you can never be certain.

Curious though, if he turns out to be a female will his name change to Olivia?

[Oliver_the_BP]

Funny story!

My grandpa was a Canadian citizen before moving to Minnesota with my grandma. For some reason he had a dead snowy owl. He was talking with his taxidermist friend who offered to stuff the owl before he moved. My grandpa thought the owl was male, so he named him Oliver.

When getting the owl back.. my grandpa was informed it was actually a female owl! He changed the owl's name to Oliv-her

If my Oliver turns out to be female, I'll be continuing the "tradition" and name him Oliv-her.

[Luvyna]

Haha that's a great story for the name! And such a clever twist too. Your grandpa sounds super cool and it's nice that you're carrying on the tradition Hope this forum will be able to help you determine if it really is Oliver or Oliv-her.

[redshepherd]

Unfortunately no way to tell a ball python's sex by their spurs. You'll need to probe to find out.

If he's little, probing is actually not very hard and you can buy your own probe set. A few years ago, I just followed a good youtube tutorial and learned to probe them myself.

[Craiga 01453]

Like others have said, no way of knowing by the spurs. Popping or probing are the only ways to tell.

If you do try to do it yourself, be super careful because injuries can occur if done incorrectly.

Finally, SUPER cool story about your grandfather and Oliver/Olive-her!!
Please feel free to share that story here if you'd like:
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...e-get-its-name

[dr del]

As pointed out suprs are really no guide. Popping ot probing are the only way to be sure of the sex.

As an illustration here is a picture of a female ( proven) with very large spurs.



I did have a picture of a male with short spurs but image shack currently won't let me get to it.

[Oliver_the_BP]

Thanks for all the replies!

I read that spurs can be an indicator, but not a definite answer on sexes. The longer spurs male, shorter spurs female.

I’ll probably just keep it a mystery since I have no real need to find out.

[Nathan2009]

you probably could get a probing set for a decent price. there are plenty of youtube videos that can show you or go to a reptile vet