Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is there any issue with using a male thats 20 years old ? Does the sperm degrade at all ? I realize new sperm is made all the time but regardless I would assume that the sperm arent as maybe good as say a 5 or 6 year old males ??? I guess I think in terms of humans in how there cells just degrade i.e. skin wrinkles, oragn failure etc... and wonder if the same applies to snakes ? This male is really showing his age.

Keith
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Have you ever seen anyone ejaculate a snake? It's been years and years since I saw the technique demonstrated, but it's not hard to do. Just see if you can track down the art and scope the sperm to see if it's swimming or not.

Or if you breed on paper towels or newspaper it's pretty easy to get a sample and check it.

I would check it several times over the course of the breeding season.

The issue probably has more to do with what we do right or wrong in captivity than the age of the snake.

Forky

Keith, in most male animals the sex cells divide throughout their life while female egg cells are all formed very early in development. The males may lose some fertility due to senesence but males in general have a greater problem with chemical/bioaccumulation contributing to deformities of the sex cells because their sex cells divide post exposure. This is why men are not as suited to hazardous material cleanup as women are.

I wouldn't think there is too much danger in breeding old males.

We've all speculated before about the possible age of the wc Maryland male I found. I wish there was more field data on eastern kings.

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Bob Bull
2.3 L.g.getula MD Locality
2.2 L.g.g GA locality
1.3 L.g.g albino
1.3 L.g.g het albino
1.2 L.g.g P-het albino
1.0 L.g.floridana peanutbutter
0.2 L.g.f. het peanutbutter
1.0 L.g.f. N.E. axanthic
1.0 L.g.nigrita
1.1 L.t.hondurensis het hypo-melanistic
0.1 L.t.hondurensis hypo-melanistic

I have a very old ruthveni that I used this year. He was purpoted to be wc either collected or aquired by Lloyd Lemke in the 80's at the same time the original het for albino Ruthven's came in. I got him in about 2001 and he was a large adult with a big head and faded color then. He produced 7 viable (and no infertiles)eggs this year resulting in 1 full term kinked dead in egg, 1 kinked hatchling and 5 perfectly normal hatchlings. I would say old males are no problem as I have had worse results using younger males.

A guy that runs a lab at my school has a pair of cal kings that are around 20 years old that actually came from Frank. I think he said he got around 10 clutches from them but they haven't breed for the last few years. I would be willing to bet it is the female that looses fertility as said in the previous post. I will ask him what he thinks he used to teach physiology so I'll bet he has a good idea. I do know from my field work that old rattlesnake males continue to breed, but I don't know how old. They live a long time. I would say try it and let us know what happens.
Jason

I do use my old male and have for 3 years. He has sired all perfect clutches but I dont want to be suprised with a bunch of infertile or inferior hatchlings either. Sometimes its better to go out on top of your game lol

Keith
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I had a female cal that I raised and bred with the same male for 10 straight years and never had a single infertile eggs. (until she was 12 yrs old)

Then I got a clutch of "mutant" babies (wierd, bull-dog looking things with lower jaw longer than upper jaw)

I figured it was a result of her age...gave her a year off, and then she bred at age 14 (a 100% infertile clutch)

then again at 15 years she gave me a perfect clutch of 13 eggs which hatched into perfect babies.

The plan was to see how long she continue to breed...until I was a nit-wit and accidentally let her get eaten by an indigo snake.

I wonder how long snakes really live?
The herp hobby is not really that old.

I have a friend who caught an ADULT corn snake in SC in 1980 (26 years ago) and it's still about the same size as it was when he caught it and still healthy.

There are rattlesnakes in my lab that were caught as adults 20 or so years ago and are still doing fine. I think most snakes can live a long time. There is a lot of longevity data around for many spp.
Jason

Ahh come on Keith keep using him and hopefully he can die in the act. Its the best way to go man. Plus he makes such nice babies. Let him live the dream. Let him be a sexually active old man.
Later Jason