Quote:
Originally Posted by lemon
The keeper I know use to run a rescue and has had literally hundreds and hundreds in his care over the years.
He currentley has snakes aged between 7-28 years. The longest one grew all the way up to 13 years of age but unfortunatley hasnt grown an inch since. He has many that have stopped growing at ages 9-11 and even a few that have stopped at age 7. I believe its because each one can only genetically get so big and due to different environmental factors and feeding schedules they have all reached their max at different points of time. Though I do believe a serveley stunted animal could have a 2nd growth spurt but this would have to happen at a youngish age and not at 20 years of age etc. I can also confirm one if his giants stopped growing at age 7 but then started growing again 18 months later. In the wild it would more than likely take longer to grow to its max as food isnt readily available like it is in captivity and they would use a lot more energy throughout the day. Also in the wild snakes die very rarely of old age and therefore probably still are growing up to the day they die. But out of al the hundreds of snakes that he has owned between 2 years and nearly 30 years of age none of them have grown past the age of 13 and even that particular snake was on its own as the majority of the others stopped growing a lot earlier. I've personally never had a snake grown past the age of 10.
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Well seems like we're both kind of right.
I definitely wish there was a full study on this somewhere or that one would be done. I have taken to measuring my 12+ year old ball pythons to see their size over the next few years. My male albino currently measures in at 54 inches.
I say we both seem kind of right because in your experience they seem to stop growing at quite an older age than most people would say they "max out" at. A lot of people say this number is within 3 or 4 years whereas your experiences show average seems to be 10! Much farther along than a lot of people think. Rather interesting anyway.
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