Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In very large eggs, both my females layed 6 BIG eggs apiece about 30-40% bigger than the eggs I have hatched in the past.I thought my one huge female was gonna lay like 10-12 eggs but instead she layed the 6 biggest eggs I have ever seen. is there a linkage between big eggs = big babies or twins. Is it also possible that the father may have large offspring genetics I hatched out eggs from both of these girls a year apart from seperate fathers (not my male breeders) and those eggs were not large at all. OPINIONS any????????

You should email the folks at NERD. I remember reading on their website that their Green Head project was suddenly halted when their female expressing the trait they were interested in became gravid with some particularly massive eggs, and the mass of the eggs killed her before she could lay them.

It will be interesting to see how your eggs turn out. You said more than one female, bred to the same male did this? It IS well-noted in other species (especially in mammals) that a sire or a dam with a large birthweight does usually produce large birthweight offspring. This is also noted independently of the mature size of the parent animals (they could be larger than average at birth, but not grow very fast, and mature at about average size). The male you bred to your females could just have the genes to sire particularly large birthweights in his offspring. Keep us updated!

Good luck!

~Rebecca
-----
0.1 Dumeril's Boa '04 (Courtney)
0.2 American Pit Bull Terriers (40lb darling lap dogs:Brandy&Mara)
1.2 Ball Pythons
[1.0 '05 Orange Hypo (Specter)]
[0.1 '05 Het Hypo (Sylvia)]
[0.1 '03 Normal (Sue)]