How good are you at estimating snake length?

Hi all,

In our community, I’ve found people often underestimate how long their snakes are. Last year, I was at a buddy’s house who’d been keeping boids for many years. We were talking coastal carpets and he’d previously told me that he had a 5 year old male who was 5’ long. He takes the snake out of its enclosure and, as carpets are wont to do, it coils around his arm. He says, “see, only 5, maybe 5 and a half feet.” Of course, we measure with non-stretchy string and it’s 6’10".

So my question is, how good are you at estimating how long a snake is? Female arctic albino conda hognose and female variable king below. These guys are small, but take a guess. Answers at the bottom

And please post your pics (especially of carpet pythons) and lengths so we can see how good we are at estimating.


King is 36"
Hog is 20"

If you use this tool then you don’t need to guess much.

I use it to find out how long my snakes are. It works so long as you can figure it out and don’t enter in the wrong reference measurements.

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I use this tool too. I find people are much more likely to overestimate how long their snakes are because they’ll use the shed as a frame of reference, when in reality sheds can stretch out while they’re coming off.

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This is so true! I used this tool after measuring Willow’s shed at 31 inches. When in reality she’s 25 inches.

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Wow, thanks! Never heard of this tool.

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