a thread below raised the question of how one can know, one year, that the babies were fathered by that year's matings, and not by retained sperm from the prior year.

obviously the appearance of a phenotype that can't be produced from the current year's matings would be evidence of retained sperm. but there could be instances where phenotypes might "match" both year's expectations but genotypes could still differ.

So these questions, your feedback requested:

1. have you ever gotten babies that simply could not have been fathered by the current year's matings? if so, please provide details--did the female breed and lay very late the prior year? did she breed but NOT lay? etc.

2. have you ever NOT bred a female and still gotten babies, babies which had to have been fathered from the prior year? if so, when did she breed in the prior season? did she breed-and-lay? or breed and not lay? etc. On other occasions when you didn't breed a female in a given season, did they lay good eggs anyway? not lay? lay slugs?

thanks
terry

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