just curious

How often do you breed your female BP's? and how many times do you breed them before you retire them?

It depends on body condition and weight to be honest. I will give females the year off if they haven't gained back the weight I deem that they would need to breed the next season. Sometimes I will just decide to give them the year off. I personally haven't retired any of my females. My Mojave will be 10 years old this year and has bred the past 3 years in a row without issues or health problems.

This is an interesting topic. I don't feel I have enough experience to contribute much but I do have a couple females that have not gone annually but instead seem to be on an every other year schedule. Then I have a female that laid a big clutch of 10 for her first time last year and now I believe she is going into her prelay shed so she'll be my first to go 2 years in a row. She is an amazing eater, only took off about a month when she had her clutch last year and then immediately went back on food after laying. She is almost double her weight from last year. So I would say good eating girls could go every year without issues.

I can't speak for breeding BPs, but when I had a rosy boa that insisted* on reproducing (long story), she seemed to have no difficulty doing so every year for 5
out of 6 years before she finally accepted "retirement", & she was an older snake too when she got started. Our pets have a much easier life than wild snakes...
they have plenty of food & pretty optimal conditions, compared to wild ones, which I suspect may reproduce less frequently...more like every other year. Anyway,
I would guess that many vigorous females of whatever species can accomplish similar reproduction, but you always want to allow for individual differences too, &
don't push it.

(*this was an unwanted & unbred snake I took in from a museum that produced slugs & a live deformed neonate by parthenogenesis the first year I had her, so
reluctantly I gave her a mate for to avoid those problems in the future. I had never wanted to breed rosy boas in the first place, but at least with a mate, she
produced nothing but perfectly robust offspring, nearly 50 in all. She also lived for some years beyond all that to a very "ripe old age".)

It's up to them not to me that's why being in tune with your animal when breeding and knowing what to look for is important, some will go every year, some with take a break every now and than, some will take a brea every other year.

As for how long can they produce some females way into their 20 are being bred by those that have animal that old.

I will likely retire from breeding snakes before my snakes do or are too old to.

Reason I asked, I have a female 2,200g that I rescued three years ago.

She was gravid when I got her which I didn't know at the time.

She has produced three good healthy clutches of 6, 8, and 7 eggs but I noticed a big difference in the texture of the eggs. The first year the eggs were very white and smooth, this year the eggs were off color and had a lot of bumps all over the eggs. When they were first laid I thought they might be bad eggs and checked them a few times a week to see if they turned brown and moldy. To my surprise the first egg opened a few days ago and a nice plump healthy normal popped out this morning. The other six eggs have also pipped but they haven't come out yet.

She's a great eater and is always heavier then the previous year at the beginning of breeding season but I'm concerned because I don't know anything about her, I don't know how old she is or if she's been breed before. She may already be a retired breeder for all I know.

My plan is to give her next year off because I don't want to breed her to death.

Over the years egg will never look the same regardless of the female's age, sometimes they will be nice and smooth sometimes rough and bumpy which neither affect their viability.

As for viability not all eggs are meant to hatch and not all babies are meant to be that's just nature.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NJ Balls

Reason I asked, I have a female 2,200g that I rescued three years ago.

She was gravid when I got her which I didn't know at the time.

She has produced three good healthy clutches of 6, 8, and 7 eggs but I noticed a big difference in the texture of the eggs. The first year the eggs were very white and smooth, this year the eggs were off color and had a lot of bumps all over the eggs. When they were first laid I thought they might be bad eggs and checked them a few times a week to see if they turned brown and moldy. To my surprise the first egg opened a few days ago and a nice plump healthy normal popped out this morning. The other six eggs have also pipped but they haven't come out yet.

She's a great eater and is always heavier then the previous year at the beginning of breeding season but I'm concerned because I don't know anything about her, I don't know how old she is or if she's been breed before. She may already be a retired breeder for all I know.

My plan is to give her next year off because I don't want to breed her to death.

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I think I'd do the same thing, just being cautious & because you don't know her history...try to give her next year off, & then see how she looks the following year.
I say "try to" because some snakes retain & reproduce even when we don't plan for them to do so. But chances are her health will appreciate the break you provide.
Snakes that aren't over-bred tend to have bigger & healthier offspring, and may stay healthier themselves.

Turned out to be an awesome clutch.

My female is a bumblebee and I paired her with a Bamboo.

The clutch produced 2 - Normals, 3 - Bamboo pastels, and 2 - bamboo pastel spiders.

Those are pretty good odds.

I don't know what I was worried about.

The other normal and bambees haven't come out of their eggs yet.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...utput_1f3.jpeg
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...utput_1f5.jpeg

Congrats man, very nice!