How long can BPs breed?

Is there a cut off age for ball python breeding? At what age will they just not produce or be unsafe to breed? Is there a difference between males and females?

no limit. when clutch sizes go down, or somehow fertility isnt what it used to be and a female more often skips a season, you retire them.

a while back i watched a vid about a clutch from a really old female, i dont remember the exact number and it would be difficult to track down the right video now. but i know the age was quite comparable to the average life expectency.

Ok. I was curious because im getting a 10 year old BP and it got me thinking about it. I thought it was similar to humans that reach a certain age and cant have babies. Well the women at least.

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Originally Posted by Gerardo

Ok. I was curious because im getting a 10 year old BP and it got me thinking about it. I thought it was similar to humans that reach a certain age and cant have babies. Well the women at least.

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Some evolutionary biologists attribute menopause to an adaptation toward collective child rearing. As in, a female ages to a point that there has been enough damage (through environmental factors and time) to the quality of genetic material in the eggs that they are no longer viable or produce defective offspring (growing a human baby for 9 months also comsumes far greater energy reserves than a clutch of eggs, so the metabolic cost is much higher for the human). Since humans tend to live in colonies, the biological role of that female shifts from energy going into reproducing her genetics to energy caring for the offspring of her offspring (thus still caring for young, and protecting her genetic legacy). Since BPs don't raise their own young or live in family groups, there is no biological incentive to stop reproducing.

I think pythonfriend is referring to a Henry Piorun video. Henry pulled a clutch from a 20+ year old female.

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Originally Posted by h00blah

I think pythonfriend is referring to a Henry Piorun video. Henry pulled a clutch from a 20+ year old female.

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yep thats it, now i remember why i dont remember an exact number: i think he didnt know because he got the female as an adult.

yea i seen that video 2 .. she dropped a big clutch 2 .. crazy

I have not seen that video
I'm going to look it up as soon as I can.

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Originally Posted by Gerardo

I have not seen that video
I'm going to look it up as soon as I can.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/TessiePi thats the youtube channel, but you also find it when you search youtube or google for Henry Piorun.

its a good channel, unfortunately too many videos for me to locate the right one :)

They can breed their entire lives.
However, when you choose to retire a snake is personal preference.