RETIC, spur size , sex identification,

[swaine]

question to anyone who keeps sub adult/adult retics, ive been reading you can identify the sex of a retic 95% by by the size of there spurs,
asking this as i bought a bali retic labled male from a very good source, grown him on hes over 10ft now, and this year decided to put him in with my calico female, and nothing really happening, which i was a little puzzled about, i tried him with a yellow head female last year and he paid no attention,
so, i was looking over them today and noticed the bali male has no spurs compared to my proven male jampea who has large spurs, looking over the collection i noticed all female retics have very little spurs if spurs at all, the bali is a handfull so cant really be probed alone, vet said he would prefer to sedate the the bali then probe, which will cost about £65+ lol,
i put the bali with my proven male jampea( no signs of aggressive interaction) so im pretty much sure my he bali, is a she bali, but i have heard dwarf retics dont really combat, so still no 100% proof, any ideas?
stew

[shrek]

spurs are generally bigger in males but if you know how to probe i could give you a hand as i live in crewe as well

[ogawa only]

get them probed , ive known males to be ok for a while then kick off , retic's are all over the place , in spur size , better to be 100% sure , have you tried misting/spraying the pair ??

[Young_Gun]

Probing is the only way to sex an adult retic, I have had males with no spurs, females with massive spurs and vice versa.

[swaine]

cheers for that guys, looking at some of my deff males and like you say some serious size difference in spurs my male super tiger het retic nas no spurs at all,
seems a lot of contradicting info some say males conflict within minutes so good info that male tics can be peaceable and then combat, i have heard like i mentioned aggressive combat is not seen in dwarf retics i have a couple of pairs but hardly enough to verify that dwarfs wont/dont combat,
ive thought id planned my breeding season to perfection,this year, temp drops, light reductions, helps if you 100% sure of sex of them,lol,
i usually beginning the misting november-feb, but will see what happens when i try that out,

also, dont know if anyone else has had this when i bred the dwarf retics i never saw them coppulating on the viv floor, they were provided branches and coppulated high up, didnt seem a lot of copulations also, and always very early in mornings ,they also provided a well misted vivarium, stew

[ogawa only]

it's not uncommon , not to see retic's at it , i know a few breeder's who would love to see it , but never do !! depends on the snakes at hand , some are rampant and other's go the barry white route