Well, the second clutch of the season was born early this morning. I'd like to note that they arrived EXACTLY on the day I predicted based on a little help from Bob and Jeff Rhone. This does it for me. There appears to be a very strong correlation between post-ovulatory shed and gestation. For this species, 110 days seems to be the magic number. In this clutch, all of the babies are big and beefy. None of them had any yolk to absorb. In the clutch born earlier this week, gestation was only 104 days. The babies were smaller and some still need to asorb yolks. I'm really anxious to hear some of the other breeders' results.



I'd also like to mention that this clutch resulted from only one copulation. I was feeling a little arrogant back in February. The female was showing all the right signals. I put the male in with her for one evening and that was it (I don't even think I left him in all night long). I pulled him and never reintroduced them. O.K. enough of that, here's the pics.



This female belongs to Dave Colling. She's a normal BRB and unrelated to the hypo line. The male is the same hypo male who sired the clutch born earlier this week. This is the second new line of hets produced this year.



Here's proud momma guaring her clutch.





Before I removed the babies, I just sat and watched them for a while. The mother was so gentle and seemed to want to try and keep the babies grouped together as much as possible.





I love all the little heads popping up...





and breaking through the slime.





Here's the stats:

Clutch date: August 2, 2007

Age of female: 3 years

Clutch size: 16 live (8.8); no slugs or stills!

Mass of lightest baby: 34.92 grams

Mass of heaviest baby: 37.79 grams

Days since pos-ovulatory shed: 110



Thanks for looking!


-----
Mike Lockwood

www.tooscaley.com

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