Corn snakes, when to retire?

Just curious as to others oppinions on how old a male corn snake can normally still sucessfully breed? I have a couple of 9 y.o. males that bred this year but I'm wondering when it will be time to place them in the old corn snake retirement home.

Well, I have bred males that were 11 years old with good fertility results, but I normally don't keep males around that long as a general rule. Just about every animal is a step in the direction of something newer, so once I have the bases covered they were needed for, I don't have any need to keep them.

I have bred a female Okeetee that was 15 years old and she produced well for me. I recently retired her to be a pet for a youngster whose dad works for me part time.

I believe you could probably breed a male up till the day it died and probably still have good fertility from him, but that is merely speculation on my part. As a general rule, I have found fertility in larger, older males, to be MUCH better than from younger, smaller males. I guess by nature's rule of thumb, a big old male is a proven survivor, so those are the genes that future generations would really like to have passed on to it.

I'd follow Rich's advise. There are exceptions... I have a locality "Rosy Rat" from Grassy key that is now at 19 years old. She double clutched last year and doesn't seem to be slowing down a bit!!!! Just lucky??? Good genetics???

Thank you Rich and Raymond.