Quote Originally Posted by slartibartfast
Also known as "don't buy females from scuzzy people in crappy petstores".

Bought a set of probes and brought a nice assortment of sizes and genders in to my vet so I could practice under supervision.

The big skinny scarred up female that I bought for $50 from the creepy guy because I felt so sorry for her (and was hoping to get a breeder out of eventually when she recovered) is unquestionably a male. Poop and double-poop. "She" has been eating ravenously and gained a good 250 grams in under two months, up to 800 from the 550 I purchased "her" at, so I had hopes that she'd be breedable next year. My other girls are all babies so this one was going to be my "practice" breeding before I get started in earnest the following year.

What sucks is the guy probed this animal in front of me, and at the time I didn't know enough to tell the difference...he had a bunch of unsexed adults in this little tank together with no hides or heat...just a screen top. I asked him what sex they were and he started probing, and this one probed female according to him. At the time, I didn't know what to look for when you probed, and I'm still not sure I could tell the difference just from watching someone do it. This was the one really crappy looking snake, and I knew it wasn't going to get care from him, so I bought it out of pity, and with the hope it would eventually be a breeder. Oh well. Now I know, eh?

Oh, and probing is not nearly as hard as I was afraid of. I'm not saying everybody should rush out and do it, but if you have a good sense of what you're feeling, it's very clear. The descriptions that folks gave in another thread were perfect...I could tell exactly what I was feeling.
Sorry to hear about this .I also fell for the bullcrap in my startings since i had no idea also at that time.I was shown something on how some vendors and others pull to make it "look " like a female,next time you probe your now known male for say practice reasons.When you start sliding in the probe stop halfway up.You will now have your female! Since people are unaware of probing they "trust" the person selling it.Just so noone misunderstands i am NOT saying i do this nor telling anyone to do this if you are trying to sell a snake.I am just pointing out what possibly happened in this case from the pet store.Now once you are 110% sure on your probing skills go back to that pet store and show him the proper ways .I used to act stupid at certain shows and i would ask them to tell me if this snake is a female or not and of course it was always what i was looking for.Then i would calmly pull out my probe set and get the real truth .Majority of the time the "female" grew a hemipenis within seconds of me checking it