Popping

[snakegirl4life]

Ok, so after many hours of watching videos on youtube, talking to experienced people, googling it, being shown exactly how to do it on webcam from an experienced person, and so on so fourth, i decided to pop Maxwell. I was a little nervous at first, but then i think i kinda got a feel for it and was able to apply a little more pressure, i had my right thumb directly above the vent, and was pulling back a little bit, i had my left thumb about halfway down the tail under the vent, i rolled my left thumb up until it reached the vent opening and some flesh showed up, it was pale pink and i could see 1 little hole. no hemipenes popped out at all. i tried a few more times and same result. im beginning to think that Maxwell may be a female? he/she is about 18 inches long, im not sure how old he/she is. some ppl have told me that you can kind of tell by seeing the tail, so i will attach some pics. (also on the pics you can see more of the little discolored uplifted scales, as mentioned in another post of mine) anyways, there are no reptile stores or anything here in my town, and there is no reptile vet, there are just some normal vets. so i cant go to a reptile store to get it probed or anything. i was just wondering how accurate popping is on ball pythons this small?

[frankykeno]

Usually on a smaller bp you can pop the males easier but it's still best to try a few more times to make sure you did it right. For now though if you saw no hemipenes you can assume Max is a girl. Tail length or shape isn't a reliable indicator of gender in ball pythons.

[Wh00h0069]

Popping is very accurate, if you do it correctly. If you think that you may be wrong, either have it probed or probe it yourself.