Sexing Olive Pythons

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crackfoot

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Hello my friends. I have four beautiful adult Olive pythons that have just been probed for sexing, all have a score of five subcaudals from the cloaca. Usually 1-3 for the female and 9-14 for the male in most spieces . Unfortunately I do not have a sexed olive to compare . Does anybody know the subcaudal count for olives ? Im thinking they're all boys but still not 100%
Thank you
 
Hello my friends. I have four beautiful adult Olive pythons that have just been probed for sexing, all have a score of five subcaudals from the cloaca. Usually 1-3 for the female and 9-14 for the male in most spieces . Unfortunately I do not have a sexed olive to compare . Does anybody know the subcaudal count for olives ? Im thinking they're all boys but still not 100%
Thank you
According to the Oenpelli book by Dr. Bedford I am currently reading there are a lot of intermediate results for olives so it isn't always obvious what sex they are unfortunately
 
According to the Oenpelli book by Dr. Bedford I am currently reading there are a lot of intermediate results for olives so it isn't always obvious what sex they are unfortunately
According to the Oenpelli book by Dr. Bedford I am currently reading there are a lot of intermediate results for olives so it isn't always obvious what sex they are unfortunately
thank you for your reply . Agree two of them have long slender tails typical of males and the other suddenly tapers off after the cloaca . I will hear back from the vet in the next couple of days for the results
 
It seems incredibly unlikely that you would have four adult Olive Pythons which all probe 5 subcaudals deep on both sides.

If someone probed them and gave this result, my diagnosis would be: a person who doesn't know how to probe snakes.

If they genuinely probe to 5, they'll generally be female, but generally if they seem to probe to about five, they're males and you haven't fully inserted the probe, and if you do it properly you'll get to to the full depth of around 10-12 or so.

Feel can be as important as depth, especially if you're not managing full penetration. Females feel more like a loose pocket, males feel more like a tight, elastic pocket. Males having more control over this part of the anatomy is why they are able to tighten up and prevent full insertion, and when they're stubborn it can be quite difficult to probe them fully.

Realistically, you certainly won't have four random Olive Pythons which all probe to 5 subcaudals, across all 8 pockets. It's relatively rare for females to probe that deep and if they do they often won't be even on both sides, so coming out with four random individuals which are all very unusual in exactly the same way is basically mathematically impossible. It's very rare for males to only probe that shallow if you've fully inserted the probe - people commonly mistakenly think they have males which probe that shallow because of bad probing technique but I've never seen even one male Olive which probed that shallow when done properly. You could have all males, but if so, absolutely without doubt they've not been probed properly. One unusual individual, sure, that happens. Two unusual individuals exactly the same as each other... extremely unlikely... four in a random sample of four... nope!
 
hey there, i'm not an expert but that does seem odd to have all four with the same probe result. maybe double-check the technique? i've heard olives can be tricky to sex accurately.
 

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