Is This True?

[ArvadaLanee]

I have been reading a book with my boys called "Corn & Rat Snakes," by Philip Purser. In the section on sexing your snake, it describes a method of sexing by counting the subcaudal scales. The claim is that corn snakes have a set number of subcaudal scales, and that all males will have between 70 to 80 pairs, and all females will have 59 to 70 pairs. I was wondering if anyone else had ever heard this, and if it is true. If this is accurate, it could give newbies a way to sex their snake without having to find someone to probe, or "pop" their snake, although it can not be easy to get an accurate count either! And what if your snake had exactly 70 pairs? Nightmare was sexed by the breeder, so I know he is male, but I just found this interesting.

 

[daddio207]

Sexing by counting subcaudal scales has been around for decades. It seems to pop up every now and then. I have never used it personally as I believe it is flawed. I recall years ago counting scales and finding it didn't agree half the time with what I found the sex to be from popping or probing.

 

[ArvadaLanee]

So maybe not true after all! Good to know. Perhaps I should get us a new book to read. Lol

 

[Tavia]

It's kinda up there with sexing by tail shape, it's a bit more accurate than flipping a coin, and in conjunction with one of the other non invasive methods, like sight sexing, might give you a fairly reasonable idea on the gender but not as accurate as popping or probing.
Another non invasive method is "candling" which consists of holding the snake's tail up to a bright light, a LED works great, and trying to see the blood/veins in the hemipenes for males or the absence of same in females. The only problem with candling is that it works best on young snakes and ones with limited pigments. As the snakes age, the skin gets less see through and ones with a lot of dark pigments in the area might not ever be able to see enough on them to tell.
Best to have a known male and female at the same time to compare when you are first trying to candle too!
I'd say popping, probing and then candling are the most accurate ways to tell but even they aren't infallible!

 

[ArvadaLanee]

Cool. I have heard of candling, but only in reference to bird eggs. Good to know all these things. I have a feeling that if you worked with a lot of snakes, or became a breeder, you would eventually learn all the little subtle signs and get very good at making an accurate guess. I'm glad mine was sexed by an experienced breeder, so I don't have to try to guess. I had a feeling that if this scale counting method was accurate, I'd have read about it somewhere on this site by now! I knew it couldn't be that easy! Hahaha

 

[kathylove]

Interesting that you mention subtle signs that come with experience. I have observed that after popping LOTS of babies, I can pretty accurately guess the gender by the "feel" of the sub caudal area, before I actually try to evert the hemipene. The baby males have a rather soft, "padded" feel caused by the sponginess of their sexual organ, while the females have a sort of hard, bony feel to that area. It is kind of subtle and probably wouldn't be noticed by a novice. But once you have popped several dozen (or maybe several hundred), try to see if you can tell the difference by the texture. I still go ahead and pop each one, and occasionally my guess is wrong. But most of the time, popping proves my guesses to be correct.