Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have an 8year old male jungle carpet python that i have always wanted to breed but for one reason or another never had the money to do it and was wondering if he was too old?

At that age he would be in his prime. I wouldn't consider him old until he was approaching 20.

Kelly

cool whats your oldest breeder?

My 22 year old male was paired with a 12 year old female this year and they produced 12 beautiful eggs that all hatched. Nice healthy strong babies too . He has bred every year for me for the last 6 years that I have had him. Nice vigorous breeder every year.

thanks for the reply i always read that they should be 3 to start but never when they get too old i guess the answer is never thanks again

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.

The reproductive process is obviously many times more energy intensive in females due to mass conversion, especially if fertilization occurs, and magnitudes more with physiologically thermoregulating pythons. It therefore is not too surprising that the males surpass females with regards to age limit of reproductive viability. There are a fair number of records concerning males successfully reproducing after 20 years of age, but that is rare with females.

Kelly

cool now i just got to find a nice pure jcp female an give it a try thanks again for the info