Sexing and injuries?

[Penultimate]

I've been wondering about this one for a while. I know it has been said that you can hurt a snake while popping it. What kind of injuries can occur, how do they affect the snake and do they influence future breeding? How do these injuries happen? Also, how do you tell if you accidentally hurt it? Can you? The breeder I got Onyx from showed me how to pop a snake and I've read up on it, but I haven't done it. I'm just curious about this stuff because I haven't been able to find it anywhere. I saw someone post that they had seen a lot of snakes hurt this way, but I have no idea how one would know.

[anicatgirl]

Hopefully someone with more knowledge will answer. My answer simply is: I wouldn't do it unless I had been personally taught by and practiced in front of a professional. If I was buying a snake I would buy from a reputable breeder who would either pop the snake in front of me, if in person, or provide a guarantee of gender and then I would have my vet pop it, if I bought off the internet.

[Penultimate]

Does anyone else have any input?

[blk02ssmonte]

To each their own I guess but I know someone that had a snake die from popping. She now uses probes. But I guess horror stories can come of that as well.

[AllieKin]

I am not sure of the details, but I have heard probing is safer and so have not attempted to pop my BPs. I have probed them successfully, though!

[anicatgirl]

Probing also needs to be attempted carefully. I would seek training for that from a pro too. I'm that mom who worries that I would hurt my girl, but better safe than sorry IMO

[KitaCat]

At the risk of being (rightfully) scolded...

I agree that you shouldn't attempt either for the first time without being shown properly. When I advise new keepers, that's the advice I give.

However... I did learn to pop my BP's from watching Youtube videos. I've popped most of the ones I own, mostly for practice so I'm ready to sex hatchlings. None have been visibly injured or shown any signs of ill health afterwards.
I basically erred on the side of caution and used very little pressure to start, gradually increasing the pressure until they popped. I can imagine you could do some damage if you applied too much pressure.

I DO NOT recommend anyone try to learn this way. I just thought I'd throw out an alternate point of view.

[Penultimate]

Ok, I understand that snakes can be injured by sexing. But what kind of injuries can occur? Do these injuries influence breeding? How does one know if they hurt a snake by trying to sex it? Can you even tell? Again, I have not sexed a snake on my own. This is a post made out of curiosity.

[DVirginiana]

I'd go to your herp vet and get them to teach you how to either probe or pop and then have you do it at least once with their supervision. I've heard popping is only really appropriate for very young snakes and probing is much safer for older ones. I really don't know much about it though.

[ballpythonsrock2]

Hi I'm Steve and kind of new here. After much reading here and other sites about BP's have thought of a question in this subject. I have one BP regular I got from Petco. I kind of feel it is a girl but I haven't popped or probed it and I don't really need to try. I am not going to have more than one, nor plan to breed it. I just want him/her as a pet. I love having him/her, it's almost an obsession. ( ask my wife she'll tell ya ) she isn't much on snakes but supports my interest.
I know that males are about 3 and half feet and females grow to about 5 or 5 and half feet. So how long do I need to wait till it has reached maturity and I will know by it's size whether it is a male or female? Since it really isn't important for me to know except for the name. And like Brian on snake bytes say's if your not going to breed, does it really matter if you call your snake a mismatched name. How long in months or years is it before you will know size matters?