Posted by:
oldherper
at Wed Jun 11 09:42:47 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by oldherper ]
But there are other things that are known to contribute, such as low sperm count in males due to insufficient brumation duration or incorrect brumation temperatures. Egg binding is much more likely to occur with infertile eggs. It is possible for a female to be carrying a clutch of 10 or more eggs with only 2 or three being fertile. In that case, depending on the position of the fertile and infertile eggs, it's possible for her to bind with fertile eggs inside here, but the actual eggs that are adhered will be the infertile one, causing her not to be able to pass the fertile ones behind them. It's a little like stuffing marbles through a garden hose. They are going to come out in the order they are in inside the female. If you stuff three marbles in and the fourth one gets stuck, all the marbles behind the stuck one are stuck, too.
Another thing that can contribute to the actual egg-binding process is bacterial infection. This infection is very difficult to diagnose befor there is actual egg binding because generally the female will exibit no outward symptoms.
There is some evidence that exercise and body weight/mass do play an important role in successful captive breeding, and that only makes sense, especially from the female's point of view. There is a lot of stress involved in the actual mating process, and the a lot of body resources are used in the production and calcification of the eggs, then more stress at egg laying time.
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That may be a part of it, for sure... - oldherper, Wed Jun 11 09:42:47 2003