Age of Reptiles

[Grub]

No, I'm not talking about travelling back in time to the Mesozoic era. I know, bait and switch title.

Disclaimer: Noob here. I have no snakes yet.

On regular care sheets/forum info/wiki articles and whatnot, I often see lifespans of 25+ years. In your experience and in general, do they really tend to live that long? I see a lot of posts (not just here, but many of the facebook groups) of people with new snakes, almost always young hatchlings. I have been stalking craigslist and animal shelter postings for months now, watching for snake rehomings, but I've actually found those to be incredibly rare.

It seems to me, that the lifespans can't be averaging 25+ if there are so many young snakes being sold and so few advanced age snakes trading hands. I would expect to see more instances of buyer's remorse or 'my kid went off to college and couldn't take their snake' or whatever excuses people like to toss around, but I'm just not seeing it. Do snake people just tend to hang on to their animals more so than those who buy dogs, rabbits, etc?

Am I looking in the wrong place?

I've yet to settle on a snake, but I've thought I might prefer to take over the care of an older animal as I've read they tend to mellow out a bit with age.

[Hannahshissyfix]

Unfortunately many reptiles die from poor care long before they naturally would so that accounts for a lot of them. There are plenty of normal ball pythons and the cheaper colubrids regularly listed on my local Craigslist so I'd just keep checking. It's great that you want to find an older one. It drives me nuts when people act like they need to buy a baby vs the few year old snake as if they still won't have a ton of time together with proper care.

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[Bogertophis]

Snake longevity, ie. lifespan, depends on good luck (avoiding contagious nasty stuff), good genes, good care...AND what species you're asking about. Keep in
mind that it's much like asking how long HUMANS live...the exceptional exception might be 100+, but most are 20-25% less, & many far shorter still. Also there
is a big difference between our pets (presumably with good care & medical help) & the unfortunate wild ones.

BP's are on record to have made it to 47 years but that's the exception, not the rule. BPs & boas can live to 25-30+ years, while many rat snakes & colubrids
max out in upper teens- mid 20's, and something like a garter snake may only live to 10 or 12 years.

Some states (or cities) seem to have more people keeping snakes too...if you're in a rural area, you'll find fewer.

It's entirely possible that you may find an adult/older snake that someone would like to downsize from keeping...you might try a "want" ad in various venues,
& especially in local vet's offices with bulletin boards. You might be surprised. It's actually a GOOD idea that your first snake be an established animal rather
than a fragile neonate/hatchling that is still learning to eat. Also, some snake-breeders have hold backs or adult snakes they no longer want to breed from- you
might try to contact them to see.

[Dianne]

I’d agree that there us least some percentage of young animals that die due to failure to properly care for them, but there isn’t really a way to know that percentage. As for the age a reptile achieves, part of it is species and part is proper husbandry. There are those of us in the hobby for the long haul, and there are those that sell the adults through CL, expos, and stores. Sometimes the adult snakes have their age understated to sell better because older animals are often more difficult to sell.

I currently have 4 “senior” snakes: a 16 year old male cornsnake, a 26 year old Bci, a 28 year old normal phase ball python, and a 30 year old Colombian rainbow boa. My female cornsnake passed a month ago and was also 16 years old...had the pair from hatchlings in 2002. My Bci was a year old when I got her, the bp was 2 years old when I got him, and the Colombian rainbow was 8-9 when I got him. I had a male Bci that passed last year at 26 years old...I had him since shortly after his birth in 1991 (my first snake).

I also have a wild caught Solomon Island ground boa with an estimated birth year of 2000 due to his size when I acquired him in 2002. I’ve recently read that you can only expect these snakes to live 5-10 years in captivity...I’ve had mine for 16 years and he’s still going strong. You can’t put too much emphasis on providing proper care to allow your animals to live the best life possible...whether they are pets or breeding stock.

[pretends2bnormal]

I haven't had snakes long enough to see any of those expected lifespan milestones pass, but I think you may be looking in the least-trafficked places for reptiles.

Many animal shelters near me specifically take only cats/dogs. About half will take small animals (rabbits, Guinea pigs, hamsters, etc.), but I can't think of any off-hand that do reptiles, much less snakes. I think bearded dragons/leopard geckos may be taken case-by-case at a few that do rodents, but not snakes.

CL is hit or miss... even in a big metropolitan area where I am, adult snakes are uncommon. There are a few breeders that seem to post babies near me, but re-homing isn't all that frequent. And most I see would be difficult rescues... pick one or more: emaciated, stuck sheds, poor housing/husbandry, extremely dirty cages, adult female BPs in a 20 high, etc.

The places I see the most adult animals (4+ years old), tends to be in various FB groups. I'm in a group of boas and see re-homings of adult snakes every week or two, and a state-specific reptile classifieds group that has a few posts a week with wanted/for sale/trade animals,l and reptile stuff (cages, racks, etc.), with a good number of adults for exactly those "excuse" reasons. (College, boa got too big, downsizing a collection, getting out of breeding, etc. Etc.)

Another places that may be worth keeping an eye on is the faunaclassifieds forum has a for sale/trade area that adults do come up on (often for downsizing), but it's mostly babies for sale.

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[distaff]

Kingsnake.com has listings for older animals. Some are retired breeders. Many pets stores take in people's pets for re-sale. I've seen older snakes on Exotic Pets Las Vegas, and LLL Reptile multiple times. Your closest exotic vet might have a cork board where you can hang a "wanted" flier. All that said, maybe contact your local Animal Control too. You could end up with some sad hopeless cases, so I would be specific about what I wanted, but you would be surprised how many perfectly good pets end up in shelters because their owners either die or get put into nursing homes. Our local AC lady knows we keep snakes. Because she asked, I specifically told her we do NOT want her to contact us!

[Bogertophis]

Kingsnake.com has listings for older animals. Some are retired breeders. Many pets stores take in people's pets for re-sale. I've seen older snakes on Exotic Pets Las Vegas, and LLL Reptile multiple times. Your closest exotic vet might have a cork board where you can hang a "wanted" flier. All that said, maybe contact your local Animal Control too. You could end up with some sad hopeless cases, so I would be specific about what I wanted. Our local AC lady knows we keep snakes. Because she aked, I specifically told her we do NOT want her to contact us!

Good suggestions...

I've left my name/# with our local pet shelter in case they get any snake/herp calls & need help, but I've never had any contacts. Not common pets around here.

[Godzilla78]

I have bought a few older adult ball pythons, some around 10 years old. You just have to keep scanning the internet and you will find plenty of adults for sale/rehoming