Is healthy to breed?

[Malum Argenteum]

Of the herps that I've kept over long periods of time (anything approaching a typical lifespan), the breeding females show their age much earlier than the males. I don't keep any non-breeding females long term to compare, but I can't think of any reason to think that the difference isn't fully explained by the stresses of reproduction.

From a more broad perspective, I think that Bogertophis's comments about the market -- 'no shortage of pythons' -- is a more pressing concern than the health of any specific snake. Even if it were very beneficial to a female to breed, it wouldn't follow that breeding her should be done. There are currently (sit down for this) 48,000 (yes, forty eight thousand) BPs listed on the big classified site, and in rescues BPs are the new green iguana (well, they hold the title together with bearded dragons). The BP market is all kinds of messed up (actually, the whole herp market has lots of related issues).

On the other hand, and this is kind of a devils advocate position here, but I've been considering whether breeding is something keepers should strive for. There's a push lately in many circles toward allowing captive herps to exercise all their hard-wired motivations such as climbing, burrowing, brumating, intraspecific "social" interactions, stalking prey, having access to "natural" prey species and variety -- all specific to the species of herp, of course. I think that's a good push, and in general advances captive care and benefits the animals.

Breeding is arguably -- actually, clearly -- the most powerful of natural (that is, directly evolutionarily acquired) motivations. There is one key thing a plant or animal has evolved to do, and that's reproduce (or help its group/species reproduce, as in altruistic behaviors like kin selection, and in the behaviors of eusocial species such as naked mole rats). Evolutionary pressure does not, contrary to some popular belief, lead to the well being of individual animals -- it leads only and unforgivingly to reproductive success and the persistence of genes.

If we think allowing a snake to climb because it is adapted to do so (as an aside, though BPs climb they're not adapted to do so), or we think that offering geckos live crickets is good because stalking prey is a natural behavior in geckos that should be encouraged, it follows even more strongly that allowing captive animals to breed should be a priority of keepers. We tend not to think that offering live prey to snakes simply because it is "natural" is good, since harm can and too often does come to the snake from feeding live, so there is some tension between the various priorities; "general well being" is enormously complicated.

I suppose if breeding were beneficial either for health and lifespan, or for allowing "natural" behaviors, the keeper could breed and then cull the eggs. That sounds kind of weird, but I'm not exactly sure why.