Today, January 11th, 2020, was the day I would successfully pop and sex my first ball python. After many videos and forums, I decided I was ready to pop my Pastel, possibly lesser, ball python. I would have gotten him/her popped at an exotic veterinarian, but unfortunately we do not have many of those where I live.
One of my favorite ball python breeders fortunately uploaded a video on how to pop your ball python yourself:
Please do not worry, the biggest issue I had with popping my snake was the leakage... They did not seem to be bothered at all by me applying light pressure to it’s tale. It continued to slither up my arm whilst I “popped” it. Though I was hoping for 2 hemipenes to pop out, none did, confirming that it is a female. The only reason I was hoping for a male is due to the size difference they have when they mature. Males tend to get 3-5 ft whilst females can exceed over 6 ft. This means I will have to upgrade my 20 gal to a 40+ gal. But I won’t have to worry about that anytime soon, considering she is very young still. She has yet to have her first shed (with me, I bought her from a pet store, so I’m unable to figure out what morph/ age she is or if she’s had her first shed), but has successfully eaten 2 times with me without any trouble, which was very surprising to me considering ball pythons are notorious for being picky eaters.
In the end, I was very satisfied that I had finally figured out what sex my ball python is.