I wouldn't say never. In nature few animals ever live past their reproductive potential. With reptiles I think the most natural death for a female would be reproductive failure. If you prefer to extend the life of your female past succesful reproduction then I think there would definitely be a time to stop letting her breed. I don't think there is necessarily a specific shelf life, there are too many variables. That is something you'd have to keep an eye out for, increase in infertiles, unusually small clutches etc.

With males I don't think you'd ever have one too old to breed. Fertility may be lower in old males but I have not experienced that with my old man.

Besides the 12 year old concubine, the 22 year old male has his lifelong mate of 22 years as well. She has had 2 consecutive bad years. She has had problems with infertiles and some egg retention. I think I'm going to seperate her out this breeding season. She definitely is not the breeder she once was, but hey she's 22.

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