How Long Did Your Snake Live?

[j_h_smith]

In my 20 years of keeping reptiles, I've had 2 snakes die. One was an albino sand boa that would never eat. Force feeding is what killed him in my opinion. The other one died shortly after receiving the snake from another breeder. I opened the box and the snake was open mouthed breathing. Started Baytril immediatley. Snake died 3 days later. She was sick before it was shipped to me. I never did get a refund. Do you think you could help me put a curse on this breeder?

Jim Smith

[boafa]

Never had one die......My oldest two are:

15 years 323 days or...
193 months or....
5,802 days or.....
139.260 hours.....or
8,355,605 minutes or....
501,336,356 seconds......

this is the last game i play with this 12 year old........

[Bruce Whitehead]

Here's an article on just how long they should live.

Did you write this article, a bird keeper, or my mom?

A citation would be nice if it is being held up as the yardstick for the lifespan by which we are expected to measure our snakes against.

My oldest BP female is ten years, is thriving and the gentlest giant you would ever meet.

Bruce

[Rorschach]

http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums...ion_whore4.jpg

[Elise.m]

Another thing to keep in mind... Some people who rescue BPs will get one that are in the double digits of age. By rescue, I mean kept in a horrible "habitat" and still lived. They're then put in a tub and thrive. I know there's a few people on this forum that have BPs that are close to their 20s. I'm not exactly sure if all of them were rescues though.

[A.VinczeBPs]

My oldest ball python is 21 years, she's in retirement right now, she's just a pet. She's a gentle giant and in great health still.

Never had one die so far. I keep them in bins. I can tell you right now most cases of dead bp's don't die from old age, they die from keepers who take bad care of them because of pet store advice, or having no idea how to care for them...and most of those bad keeps have aquariums.

[Fish]

I was talking to an older man who works at my petstore, he breeds ball pythons.. he keeps them all on a rack and he told me his oldest one is in it's late twenties..

Just drop it with this bins vs. tank crap. When kept in a bin, heat and humidity are easier to keep stable, therfore better for the snake.

I'm guessing your one of those people who keeps their snake in a 55g fish tank?

[David802]

I was talking to an older man who works at my petstore, he breeds ball pythons.. he keeps them all on a rack and he told me his oldest one is in it's late twenties..

Just drop it with this bins vs. tank crap. When kept in a bin, heat and humidity are easier to keep stable, therfore better for the snake.

I'm guessing your one of those people who keeps their snake in a 55g fish tank?

Nope 2 10 gallon tanks put together.... how ever thats supposed to work.

[AndrewGeibel]

I think the problem with a poll like this one is that you are trying to design a study to support your conclusion. That is dangerous territory scientifically speaking. One must always attempt to be impartial when designing a poll.

As the poll stands right now, what are you going to gain from the results? All you will get is how old a keepers oldest snake is and what it lives in. That has nothing to do with how long the snake is ultimately going to live. For example, my oldest BP is 4 years old and lives in a tub. How does that give you any information about whether tubs are better than tanks? The problem here is that to really compare a tank to a tub you would need many matched pairs of BP's and then a 30 or 40 year study.

Basically we know that most people here have younger snakes and, unless I'm mistaken, most of them keep their snakes in tubs. Brush up on your statistics paying special attention to factors that can introduce the many types of bias in polls, come back with a well designed poll, and maybe we will see some statistically significant results.

[j_h_smith]

Didn't she answer her own question when she quoted the book that she read? I don't understand the reason for the poll if she read the book. That is unless she wants to use this to further her tub issue.

I don't know!
Jim Smith