A probing and an ant question

Probing question:

I probed all my corns today (to double check their sexes before registering them), and my three year old snow corn, whom I bought as a male at the begining of the year, didnt probe as deep as my other males, but it seemed deeper then my females, and I would appreciate it if someone with a bit more experiance probing both of the sexs could help confirm his sex. The probe went about 1/2 inch deep, but the females only went half as deep as his. I'm assuming because of the age difference (about a year), between my snow and a few of my other females is whats causing it to probe deeper, but I'd like to know for sure before I go out and get another male for next year. I'll post pictures of his/her tail and vent if it would help any.


Ant question:

Recently I've been eradicating multiple ant nests under and even in a few of my cages and racks, and I'm wondering what are some products out there that can eliminate this without harming the animals, especially for next year when I hope to have some eggs incubating.

Thanks for all your help!

I did read that, but what I'm confused about is that he is right inbetween male and female (He does probe to a depth more then the width of the base of the tail, but not by a whole lot when compared to other males; around 5-6 subcaudals in length), I dont have enough probing experiance to tell which one he is. Here are some pictures of his tail and vent; when I first probed him I was leaning more towards female, but now that I look at these pictures im leaning towards male.

Not sure I should chime in here, as my experience level isn't all that great, but from those pics, I'd lean more toward female.

As far as ants go, it's nearly impossible to irradicate them completely. Some ant species can have colonies that can cover an entire block of houses. You irradicate at yours, but the neighbor's still supplying more. I know the baits seem to work well by killing the queen, but professional spraying is more useful although even that has marginal success.

Probing and ants

I took my snakes in to be probed by a former corn breeder and had 1 that he said was "inconclusive, but probably female". It was the same deal, he thought the probe went a little deep, but he said it really was not deep enough to be male. So he said that when probing if he has any doubt he labels them inconclusive, just to avoid heartache later on. But he said that with that probing result it is probably a girl. She's also one with a rather odd looking tail, it's very long but tapers off quickly after the vent, but she's an 04 so that may change as she matures. That said, I fully accept that she may end up a he when it comes down to it, which would be a HUGE disappointment to me as I have big plans for breeding her.

I do not like pesticides at all myself, and I have had some luck getting rid of small ants with grits. If you sprinkle them around the ant hole they little ants will eat them and they swell up inside the ant and the ants die. I actually eliminated an entire yard full of little ants with grits once, but as Meg pointed out after that the neighbors shared theirs so we had ants again. I tried it again and it did not work, but that was after I got my dog and I suspect she may have eaten the grits! :eek1: So, I'd say it's worth a shot!

Good luck!

If they are sugar/sweet-eating ants, then I highly recommend using Terro. You can get it at grocery/hardware stores. Basically it's a clear, viscous liquid (no odor) that you put on these little squares that they give you and the ants eat it up (instead of the snakes); place them around the racks and within days you'll notice a significant reduction in the number of ants. Good luck!

Well I have an answer to your probing question.

You should be able to feel the difference between a male and a female. The male will feel more spongy when you bottom out, the female will be almost a dead stop.

If you've got a known male and known female you can see this for yourself. From the few people I've asked about this it seems that in a lot of those inconclusive cases the feel is more important than the depth.

For your ant problem, mix some boric acid with some sugar water. Soak it up with some cotton balls and put the soaked cotton balls in a little plastic container. I used little plastic Tupperware containers. I melted holes along the bottom so they could crawl right in and eat. They carry this back to the nest and wipe out the whole nest. I have parrots that eat lots of fresh fruit and veggies and in the summer the ants would be heading for their dishes in their cages. This works great and is safe.

For the ants . . .

Dig a small hole next to the exit/entrance area that they are using. Buy a can or bag of frozen sweet peas. Place the peas around the hole you dug. For really good measure, place some ice cubes in the bottom of the hole.




are you ready? . . .






Each time an ant comes up to take a pea, kick him in the ice hole. Works every time!

Seriously though, you've gotten some great recommendations from everyone here already, but peeps recommendation of grits brought to mind the old-timer method of catching polar bears.
D80

Thanks everyone for your help, I'll be trying those suggestions (it took me awhile to get the pea one, haha I was wondering how I would be able to catch every ant that comes by and kick it in the hole).

As for the probing, after the ones I'm positive on their gender have finished digesting I'll probe them again, then probe the snow to see if I can feel a difference. Either way I'm going to get another male, and if my snow is a male its good to have backup (another reason to get another corn too). Thanks again everyone!

First seeing your title of this thread I was wondering of you were trying to probe ants. :crazy02:

The boric acid idea Hope suggested works well without the worry of hurting anything else around.