Retiring breeding females

[acpart]

I've been wondering when and why people retire their female breeders besides poor health. These are the reasons I can think of:

-- age of the female. If you do this, at what age do you retire them?

--reduction in egg production: what are your criteria?

--upgrading to more high end females.

Are there any other reasons? What do you do with your females after you retire them? It would be interesting to hear from large scale and small scale breeders.

Thanks

Aliza

 

[Ian S.]

With my females, it really depends on the individual gecko. I usually base retirement on how quickly the female recovers from the previous laying season.

 

[acpart]

I was thinking of posting about this issue and then I realized that I had already posted it. I'm still thinking about it in my planning for next year and the years beyond that. At least in April when I posted this no one seemed to be interested in thinking about it, judging from the limited response. Any takers now?

ALiza

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I 'retire' females for all the reasons you all stated, but I also remove females from breeding projects that are my favorite pets that I love and want them to live for a l-o-n-g time.

 

[acpart]

Thanks, Marcia. I am sort of retiring one breeder this year because she has not been a good breeder for the past 3 seasons, producing no more than 6 eggs per season with only 1-3 live hatches. I say "sort of" because she is going to live with my normal male who I haven't bred ever. If something comes of it that's fine, but I actually don't expect anything. I will be retiring my only other original breeder, a 4 year old tremper albino, after next season.
I wonder if there is anyone who retires their breeders automatically after a certain number of years of production.

Aliza

 

[LeopardGeckoMom52688]

I bred last year for the first time. And I retired my female after this year. we don't know a age of her. but she produced 16 eggs, 3 of which hatched and one was born blind the other two went to be pets because i didn't kno her age and such. But all the other eggs had babies just never madde it out of the egg so we don't kno what happened. but after that it took alot out of her. She is now a pet to a family of 6 kids that love her to death!