"In the seventies, I hatched and raised three alterna, by their 18th month the trio produced 66 hatchlings. At the same time, I hatched and raised 3 cal kings, that trio produced 99 hatchlings by their 18th month."

Well those are indeed fantastic results. Assuming it took nine to ten months to get the first clutch and a two month turn around you'd have to average over 12 eggs per clutch to achieve those results with alterna and over 18 for the getula. Crazy numbers Frank but there had to be some drawback to that kind of production, there is always an equal and opposite reaction. For instance I average 6 eggs per clutch with my temporalis. I can get larger clutches, easily over 12, but the eggs are smaller and the neonates harder to start.

Another thing I would like to point out as a side topic is that I used to get better results back in the day than I do now with standard husbandry but back in the day I was mostly working with founder stock and F1 or 2s at most. This is just my opinion but a lot of the stock out there these days is simply not the quality stock we used to see. We're working with animals that have been subjected to generations of un-natural selection where the eye candy aspect was more important that growth potential, fertility or fecundity. All in all I don't think captive stocks are as fit or as capable as they once where which is why I value maintaining the maximum level of diversity in my collections.

Is my approach right, hell I don't know but I'm certain of this. If there's enough of us doing different things a few of us are going to nail the right balance.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

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