ALWAYS have a professional double check your snake sex IDing!!

[mommanessy247]

i bought my first "female" ball python years ago but...vet said it was a male. so what i named as deirdre [deer-dra] ...poor thing died before i could re-name it.

[seeya205]

I always ask them to pop in front of me and then I will ask another vendor to pop it! Unless you see hemipenes then you know for sure but with females, double check!

[rabernet]

Same with Kings - I had Sean Bradley check mine for me, after my purchase and he confirmed that I had what I purchased. I don't even know if I'll breed them or not - but it's good to know for "sure".

I am confident in my abilities to sex ball pythons correctly, however. I also pop multiple times before selling an animal.

I've been sold a male as a female when I was relatively new to ball pythons - but the seller realized their mistake a few days later (I purchased several animals at one time) and they allowed me to keep the male and select another female. That's actually how I first came to meet Justin Kobylka - he's local to me, and I had him sex all the kiddos I received (some CH females in 2006), and he confirmed the "female" was a male.

Made me very sad too - "she" was hot - but HE'S now in Shaun Pruitt's collection - and still a very hot snake!

[cinderbird]

when i purchase, i pop them myself or have the vendor pop the animal in front of me. For certain things if i want a male or a female then thats the sex i need, for others, i dont care i just want to know what kind of name to give it. Upon getting home I do continue to pop my snakes. Some are too large for me to do it now but I need to get a set of probes anyway.

[T&C Exotics]

If it pops male then it is a male but if it pops female I probe it. Than is how I am always 100% sure as to what I have. It doesn't matter if I purchase the snake or if I am selling it I know 100% fact if it is male or female.

[jkobylka]

Early on, I once shipped a pastel female to a customer who had purchased a male. This is back when pastels were EXPENSIVE and the females were WAY more expensive than males... He decided he'd rather have the female when I called him, so it was my loss.

Justin

[moravaguy]

ok around this time last year i bought a spider pastel and black pastel, my first soon to be breeding project, i was going to make up bees with the spider and pastel, spider was supoosed to be female and pastel male. well about a week ago i got in my own probe kit from ebay its just a small one, pulled out the black pastel (at this time unknown sex) comes out boy, then the pastel thats supposed to be a male, checks out, now time for the spider..................................bout lost the damn probe up in HIM!!!!!!!!!!

so now im just picking up normal females and pastels left and right

so yea learn to do it your self and double check and the right probe makes all the difference, its not that hard anyway just be carefull, watch people do it and you should get it.

[rabernet]

ok around this time last year i bought a spider pastel and black pastel, my first soon to be breeding project, i was going to make up bees with the spider and pastel, spider was supoosed to be female and pastel male. well about a week ago i got in my own probe kit from ebay its just a small one, pulled out the black pastel (at this time unknown sex) comes out boy, then the pastel thats supposed to be a male, checks out, now time for the spider..................................bout lost the damn probe up in HIM!!!!!!!!!!

so now im just picking up normal females and pastels left and right

so yea learn to do it your self and double check and the right probe makes all the difference, its not that hard anyway just be carefull, watch people do it and you should get it.

Did you probe both sides of the spider? Sometimes, someone inexperienced with probing can actually injure the female and it will go deep like a male. If the other side only probes shallow, then it may still be a female. Probe very gently and as soon as you meet resistance, stop.

[Thomas Jones]

I bought a male ghost "proven breeder" turned into a female. It sucks but it happens.

[moravaguy]

Did you probe both sides of the spider? Sometimes, someone inexperienced with probing can actually injure the female and it will go deep like a male. If the other side only probes shallow, then it may still be a female. Probe very gently and as soon as you meet resistance, stop.

um...........are you saying i dont know what im doing? i did not ram the probe in there hot shot, it fell in there and yes both sides i know what im doing..........so please do you ever doubt me again just cuz my profile says i just joined dont mean i just started collecting balls.