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would a female foster anothers fems eggs

XtremeXteriors Apr 15, 2006 06:57 PM

i dunno if that happens in the reptile world or not but in case of an emergency has it ever been tried in a controlled enviornment

Replies (2)

jyohe Apr 15, 2006 09:27 PM

the only way a female would foster another's eggs is if she already was setting around a clutch and being"motherly" at the time........and the only way it would be feasable is if you had one female lay duds and another good and you switched the eggs for the good eggs to set under the wrong mother......this would only be necessary if the good eggs' mother was too thin or weak and the bad eggs' mother was healthy and you wanted to get the good eggs under a healthier ball and start the weaker/thinner female on feeding faster/sooner......

it would be better to take all the eggs and use an incubator.

........and there is also the possibility that the snake would actually smell that they were not her eggs and leave the clutch....usually I think they would accept it........

they do wrap around water bowls after you take the eggs........so I try to feed and give them a bigger bowl or whatever to stop them from acting like they are still brooding...

chicken breeders use plastic brooder eggs to keep the female chicken laying eggs and to keep her thinking she is setting on eggs .......but chickens can't smell.....
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JYReptiles

Scales-N-Tails Reptiles ltd........Pa

MarkS Apr 16, 2006 12:54 AM

I don't know why you would want to do this, since I think it's easier to artificially incubate eggs. But if you should actually be in a position to test this out, please take a LOT of notes and post them for the rest of us to see. It IS an interesting question. I would think that the female would be able to smell the difference in eggs that weren't her own, but I wonder if it would make a difference on whether or not she would be willing to wrap and incubate them?

Mark

>>i dunno if that happens in the reptile world or not but in case of an emergency has it ever been tried in a controlled enviornment

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