Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi jim k here.......
i walked in on one of my large male yellowheads mating with a female yesterday. these lizards have not been through their brumation period this year. isn't it kind of unusual to mate this time of year? i was thinking maybe he was going through the motions or something. when i walked in on them, my male had a strong hold on her neck and doing his thing. they quickly parted when they saw me.
my biggest dilemma here, i believe, is that if my female starts carrying eggs, do i postpone her planned brumation period? it couldn't be healthy sleeping with eggs in her is it?
my brumation date is the 3rd weekend in november and i was going to start the backing off the heat and light this weekend.
help me out breeders.
i appreciate the information

Hi Jim I have some that are fooling around a bit too, not sure if anything will come of it, but I would say the short time it will take to make sure she is NOT gravid is worth the wait as far as brumating her. It takes 22-24 days to lay so she would start to look hefty in the next few weeks IF she is.

Because if she is you DO NOT want to brumate, those eggs would probably rot in there and infection and .... oh would not even want to think of how terrible it would be.

I would however take the male out NOW, just incase she's not gravid , and they continue to mate, and she BECOMES gravid, lol You could begin brumating him when you want, then she could a little later if shes okay.

If she is gravid then get ready to sit on some EGGS, Jim, hahahahhaaha,
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PHEve / Eve

hi eve.....how ya doing since some time passed on? i just lost oe of my females suddenly. she ate and drank great just 2 days ago and yesterday morning she was slowing down for some reason. by the time i got home, she was standing dead. one thing that i keep thinking about is "how old are these specimens that people are losing? they don't live forever. this one was wild caught and on the large side. in the pat, the only lizards that checked out were sick for some time. this was suddenly. she was not skinny and had no obvious markings on her. i just think she was an older lizard. i am going to start giving all of my collareds that parazap product. i don't think it will hurt. do you know anything about that suppliment or have you heard any horror stories about it?
well thanks for the reply dear and i will shout at you soon.
take care