scale count sexing

[rwg]

Hello,

My corn just shed for the first time in our care (about 1 month after her last shed in the pet store just before we got her). I read a method of sexing that involved counting ventral scale rows from the cloaca to the tail tip. less than 130 is probably a girl. More than 140 is (likely) a boy. In between is a toss-up. Well, I didn't count too accurately...pretty small scales at the tip, but it's certainly no more than 100, so it's a girl I assume.

A couple questions. I assume that since this method made no reference to the age of the snake that snakes have the same number of scales all their life. Is this true? How reliable is the scale count method? We had already decided she was likely a girl from her tail shape, and the pictures in the corn snake manual.

Also, how accurate does her shed length correlate to her actual length? I've wanted to measure her but it's hard to get her straightened out to get an accurate reading. I'm a bit nervous about being rough with her. Is the shed going to be longer or shorter than the snake?

Thanks.

[reverendsterlin]

scale count sexing has enough overlap to be suspect, another method I've heard of with sheds is vent comparison proposing that females have extra skin inside the vent that also sheds and causes the vent opening on the shed to appear small while the male shed remains open at the vent. sheds are longer than the actual animal and useless for measurement purposes.

[KingJaff]

you can sex snakes in three ways, Probing (v hard) counting the scales (really you need all the snakes from the same clutch so you can compare) and popping, this is when you apply a very gental pressure, either side of the anal plate, if its a boy the hemipenis will come out, if its a girl nothing will happen ( this is why you must be carfull, coz you'll probably think, Am i squeezing hard enough?) WRONG you could kill a female quite easly, this is why you should do it on a male so you know how much pressure is needed, also this method only works on hatchlings and juviniles...
The best way to messure a snake (i find) is to let it crawl along a flat surface againts a wall, and then messure the wall.
or you could use a piece of string, or just hold the head and tail and use a ruler (as long as your gental you probably wont hurt her..../him lol;)