Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My het pied female laid a clutch two months behind the other females that were mated during the same period. She laid nine eggs, but three were definitely slugs. Out of the remaining six, two looked borderline, and four looked healthy. As the weeks went on, the two borderline eggs developed mold and died (actually I guess it's the other way around - they die then mold), but we still had four that looked good. At the one month mark two more eggs had died and molded, and around 40 days into the process another died and molded. One egg never formed any mold, but when I candled it the animal inside was still abnormally small and there was no movement in reaction to the light (generally I see some movement as the hatching date gets near). So here's what we ended up with..

Three slugs, one dead that was so underdeveloped we couldn't determine its pattern, four dead normals (very small, about 6 to 10" long), and one dead pied that was fully developed and about hatchling size.

I'm not sure what to blame this on, but I think things were working against us with the clutch from the start. It was the females first clutch, but probably more importantly it was with retained sperm. The incubation was substrateless, but our other clutches went to term with no problems at all.

At least the hets were proven out, though - that's our one consolation.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

When most people refer to "retained sperm", the speaking of a clutch of eggs that came from a breeding in some previous season. From your description, yours were just later that you expected from this breeding season.

Sounds like your problems probably came from a mistimed breeding. Perhaps the female was not quite ready when mated, and you had stopped running your male through by the time she reached her optimal follicular development prior to ovulation.

I had a similar situation a few years back with a first time breeder female...not too uncommon, I don't think....

I had a 10 egg clutch from a female whose last recorded breeding was 3.5 months prior. Only one of those eggs died. All the rest were healthy babies. This female was proven 3 times prior, so I am not sure if age helped, ie. are older females able to "retain" the sperm more efficiently? I am not sure. She was also very large(2900g)

I've had females lay really late in the season, or some who just decided to re-absorb their follicles. This is the reason why palpation is so important. If a female that has not ovulated yet has tiny follicles in her, you need to make the decision at that point to move the male on to another female adn give her the year off, or try to keep breeding her hoping she's just a late bloomer and will further develop follicles into the season.
It's not just about tossing a male into a cage willy nilly and taking him out again in three days. Being aware of your females and where they are in their cycles is more important than anything else.
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www.strictlyballs.ca

>>I've had females lay really late in the season, or some who just decided to re-absorb their follicles. This is the reason why palpation is so important. If a female that has not ovulated yet has tiny follicles in her, you need to make the decision at that point to move the male on to another female adn give her the year off, or try to keep breeding her hoping she's just a late bloomer and will further develop follicles into the season.
>>It's not just about tossing a male into a cage willy nilly and taking him out again in three days. Being aware of your females and where they are in their cycles is more important than anything else.
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>>www.strictlyballs.ca

Amen!....I got a nice clutch like that this year for not paying attention.One fertile and FIVE slugs!..Sometimes the learning curve is really steep...lol
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Charles Glaspie

I sold and traded off my adult breeder albinos and hets last year. I had bred my male albinos to my female albinos. This next season my friend who aqcuired one of my adult albino females from me that did not produce last season, bred a spider to her. He got eggs and they all hatched out albino. She had retained the albino's sperm from the previous year.