How the heck do you sex babies?

[Atlas511]

these things are TINY! I would crack these guys in half trying to pop them... no way to probe... is it all visual>?

[guidofatherof5]

I'm not a popper. Don't know how. Don't want to.
Check out this link to help with visual indentification:
http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/bree...xing-pics.html

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Believe it or not, you can pop them. But seriously, don't try it unless you are very confident and sure of yourself. I accurately sex my babies by popping on a regular basis. I would never probe such a small snake...

SOMETIMES you can actually visually sex them by looking at their tails. Unfortunately, I have never found this to work with garters well at all. BUT, upon being born there was such a difference in my banded water snake babies that I accurately sexed each one by sight, then mixed them back up and popped them and got the same ratio!

[ssssnakeluvr]

I popped them several times before shipping. I have been popping babies for some time too. and yes, they are small....wait till my ordinoides pops......they will be even smaller!

[Atlas511]

Don, these guys are soooo small! I would crush them! lol... I trust you on the sex but I just want to learn new things. I pop my baby retics without a thought! I guess that what happens when you hatch at 200 grams lol.

[ssssnakeluvr]

yea, they're just a bit smaller.....

[ConcinusMan]

Hey, Shannon, I've never had to pop or probe a garter, at least not sirtalis or ordinoides. The difference is pretty obvious, even when they are babies. Hard for me to understand why, for garters, morphological differences between the sexes doesn't work for you. It has ALWAYS worked for me. Anyway my real point is...

Redspot showed me something yesterday that blew my mind. We gathered several garter snakes up while we were herping and I guessed their sexes visually. He informed me that he discovered that the scale count on the tails of these snakes can be reliably used to sex them, provided their tails are intact. All snakes that were sexed visually and by scale counting, were confirmed accurate by probing. Not a single mistaken sexual ID. Probing was only done to confirm our "guesses".

I have never gotten even one confirmed male to "pop". Redspot decided to show me how easy it is, and failed to pop a male. Instead he got a shot of musk. We both got a laugh out of that.

@Atlas: Seems counter intuitive, but I would think that baby garters would be easier to pop without hurting them, than adults would. Adults have much stronger muscles for holding in the hemipenes than babies do. You just have to be careful with their little spines.

[GartersRock]

If you can't get a confirmed baby male to pop then you either aren't doing it right or it's a female. I can sex visually, popping, scale counting or probing. And popping (for babies) still seems to be the most accurate for me. I am CONSTANTLY receiving snakes from well respected individuals who probe and visually sex wrong. How do I know for sure? Because it's usually females who look like females, probe like females and then pop two LONG obvious hemipenes (no I am not mistaking for female organs) easily.
So I don't think there is any WRONG way to do it. But seriously you gotta stop saying that visual is 100% accurate and there is no need to pop ever. Because I am constantly seeing people make more mistakes when they don't do it.

With adults unless I can VERY easily pop hemipenes on a male if they are super relaxed I would never confirm female due to their ability to restrain. So probing, scale counting and visual will have to do.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Hey, Shannon, I've never had to pop or probe a garter, at least not sirtalis or ordinoides. The difference is pretty obvious, even when they are babies. Hard for me to understand why, for garters, morphological differences between the sexes doesn't work for you. It has ALWAYS worked for me. Anyway my real point is...

Redspot showed me something yesterday that blew my mind. We gathered several garter snakes up while we were herping and I guessed their sexes visually. He informed me that he discovered that the scale count on the tails of these snakes can be reliably used to sex them, provided their tails are intact. All snakes that were sexed visually and by scale counting, were confirmed accurate by probing. Not a single mistaken sexual ID. Probing was only done to confirm our "guesses".

I have never gotten even one confirmed male to "pop". Redspot decided to show me how easy it is, and failed to pop a male. Instead he got a shot of musk. We both got a laugh out of that.

@Atlas: Seems counter intuitive, but I would think that baby garters would be easier to pop without hurting them, than adults would. Adults have much stronger muscles for holding in the hemipenes than babies do. You just have to be careful with their little spines.

Richard, i think you misunderstood me... I only have to pop babies. I have never had to probe a garter... that's HIGHLY unnecessary... and after a few months of age even popping is unnecessary. I don't see scale counting as necessary for me at least... because I can sex adults on sight, and babies by popping. I suppose it could be useful but I will not be sitting down with a magnifying glass counting scales on my babies when I can pop 20 of them in 2 minutes. Anything older than a few months is often accurately sexed by eye.... and even if you can't see the tail of an adult garter snake you can often tell what it is. As for neonates, I DO pop them... and always will...and here is why: Even though you can often sex them visually, it's NOT always accurate at all, and how much you can tell varies by species and individual clutch. My clutch of pugets last year was obvious. My clutch of florida blue babies... was impossible. I had a male concinnus baby that defied all odds. The FL blue baby tails were all identical. And I have one heck of a trained eye for detail... I have customers that want accurately sexed pairs, and I am not going to risk my customer's dissatisfaction by making a visual mistake when I have a definitive alternative for baby snakes. When you are attempting to build and keep a good reputation at a high profile level... you just don't attempt to sex your babies by eye. You WILL make mistakes. I have seen baby garters and thought, that one has got to be a female, there's nothing in that tail! only to have a set of hemipenes pop out. That's why I pop clutches 3 times over the course of a few weeks to iron out any errors I have made. Usually I end up finding I have one more male than I thought or something like that. For the first popping, I always do it twice, I pop them, get a ratio count, mix them up and do it again. If I get the same ratio, then I know that's as good as it could possibly get! And then I know I am good to go.... and I have not once had to apologize, or send an extra snake out at my cost, to anyone for sending them the wrong sex

(thank god, because shipping is expensive)

[GartersRock]

Oh and when I speak of scale counting and probing I am mostly talking other species. Adult garters I find visual to be completely accurate.