Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have read many different opinions on veiled breeding age. In the wild they would obviously breed when they rech sexual maturity. Is there any advantage to holding off on breeding a female until later than the 6 or 7 month mark when they would normally become mature. What is the disadvantage of allowing them to breed as they would in nature(when they're ready)?

Thanks, Lizard breath

I have never bred a female veiled until she was full grown (over a year of age). My reasoning has been that since ours are living in captivity why not make sure that they are done growing their own bones before we put the demand of laying FERTILE eggs on the?. I also don't breed and breed them....and as a result, most of my female veileds live to be 7 or older now.

I don't know what the disadvantages in nature would be for reproducing early...but in captivity, the calcium required to produce eggs is a concern to me.

Living in the wild, there are many differences in their lives from living in captivity as I'm sure you are aware, both in their favor and against them...predators, food availability, food quality and variety, stress, weather conditions that they have to endure (drought, heat, cold) just to name a few.

Just my 2 cents worth!

One way to consider this is, by 6 months in the wild a female may be in better condition than in captivity with our limited understanding of nutrition, less than perfect habitats, and less than perfect genetic pool. She may not mate until she's older than that, even though she could if a male came along at the right time. Also consider that all a wild female really needs to do is breed and produce 2 young in her life to keep the local population going (basically replace herself and her mate). So, if she lives long enough to produce even one clutch she's done her job biologically. Breeding at a young age may well do this, and the female does not "need" to live to an older age. In captivity, there is no big demand to produce young before something eats you, so why not give her a better quality of life and wait until she's stopped growing?