I know Adam's probably not around to answer this, but someone else can perhaps clarify #3 and #4 of this much read testimony:

Quote Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki View Post
Here's my experience with breeding younger/smaller females over the last 10+ years ... I've given this spiel a few times before, so it might be redundant for a lot of you guys.

3. Just about every single one of my girls lay a number of eggs equivalent to the 1/3 of their body weight divided by 100 rule ... ie a 1500 gram female will lay 5 eggs, a 1000 gram female will lay 3 - 4 eggs ... give or take.

4. Females bred at under 1500 grams or younger than their third winter will have smaller clutches and generally never produce more than 4 - 6 viable eggs a clutch no matter how large they grow later in life ... for example, in 1998 I bred a 1200 gram female het albino in her second winter ... she laid 4 eggs and produced 1 albino ... she's now over 3500 grams and still only lays about 6 viable eggs a year while other 3500 gram girls that I have that were bred for the first time at 1500 grams and over lay 10 and even 12 egg clutches for me.

Have I seen any negative impacts to the health of a female ball python by breeding her young or attempting to breed her young? ... Absolutely not ...

-adam
#3 suggests that as females grow larger they tend to produce larger clutch sizes. I've heard that from others too.

#4 however, if I am interpreting it correctly, says that in Adam's experience, not only do females bred early produce smaller clutches that year, but they also tend to produce smaller clutches throughout their lifetime ("no matter how large they grow later in life"). This sounds like causation, ie, as if it stunts their capability . He's either saying that, OR, he's saying that of the small females given the chance to breed, the ones who do breed tend to always produce small clutches -- AKA correlation. And if causation, it would seem that breeding them young is in some way impacting one aspect of their health.

Can someone interpret?