Do females ever have plugs when popping?

[Oxylepy]

Because I am trying to figure out how to pop (aka I'm testing it out) on my adult "male" ball python. I've had him for a few years and I wanted a snake to test it on, knowing he is a male. Well I tried popping and got plugs (well that is what I assume they are) but I couldn't get his hemipenes to come out, which is what popping is supposed to do, showing that it's a male.

Could be that I'm doing it entirely wrong, or it could be that he's a she if shes can produce inch long white things (almost like icicles) in their tails. I'm not going to try and do it again tonight for fear of stressing the snake out or injuring it. I've been trying to watch the videos and figure it out from there and this isn't my first attempt at doing it (I've done it one other time a couple months back to the same results).

[littleindiangirl]

Those inch long double things are from the hemipenes themselves. So, he is a male.

[SPJ]

Do females ever have plugs when popping?

No. That would be a male.

Adults are very hard to pop. They have strong muscle control. Seeing plugs though guarentees it's a male.

I bought an adult female a few years back. When she arrived, the body shape and size just didn't "look" right for an adult female. I probed her and the probe went deep and came out with a plug on it. Sure enough, it was a male.

[gu1do24]

only the transexual snakes.

[Freakie_frog]

I have popped females before that had some left over shed in their cloaca that looked very simular to a sperm plug. So you can some times get a little bit of "stuff" out of a female also.

Unless your 100% sure that its a sperm plug your looking at then I'd say keep trying.

[Oxylepy]

Well I'm pretty sure these are sperm plugs. But it isn't so much about the sexing, it's about the learning to pop, I'm being gentle with him when I do it, but as I only have 3 snakes and he is the only normal among them, he gets to be my test subject. I was just making sure that females shouldn't normally have anything similar to sperm plugs, lest I be popping in vain.

[SatanicIntention]

I have proven females I have popped "shed skin" plugs out of, as well as expressed their scent glands. Adult males pop easy for me. I guess I just have the feel for it, LoL. Just press and roll, no biggie

Once you see female "plugs" and male "plugs, you can tell the difference. If you're popping them correctly, males will generally express a bit of seminal fluid too, or maybe my males just need some action.. Poor things.