So my female "greenish" blonde is laying. VERY slowly I might add. So far she's laid 4 infertile eggs and 1 good one. She still has about two to go from the looks of things. You'd think I'd be disappointed with 4 bad/1 good but I'm not. I wasn't even planning on breeding her this year. I had already moved the male back out to the garage after keeping him indoors since he came out of brumation and bred with my normal het for blonde female. He would not eat and seemed really restless. I didn't put two and two together until about two weeks after he was put back out in the garage and then I put the female in with him on a whim. They bred immediately. It's her first year. She's still a bit smallish. Anyway, I wasn't expecting any good eggs so one is better than none. I'll let you know how the other two turn out. I've attached pics of the good one and a couple that are bad.
The weird thing is the other female that bred with this male had her shed about 3-4 days later than the greenish female even though she bred about two to three weeks earlier. She is now in and out of her nest box. I'm hoping for great things with her as she bred with the male while he was being kept inside in the cool, air-conditioned environment we humans love. She's huge. I have yet to get good eggs from her but this year I kept the male substanially cooler than in the past. I'm hoping that did the trick and judging by the one good eye from the other female, it looks promising. At least I know he's not just infertile. Anyway, I think the greenish blonde laid sooner because after she bred I left her in the garage where it's much warmer, whereas I've kept the other female inside where it's cooler. May just be the difference in egg development time due to the difference in temps.
Sorry for the long post. I'm excited about my egg! Woohoo! Doesn't take much to make me happy, does it?
Mike
