Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Had an odd occurence this season with some of my breeders. Bit of history...

In Jan. 2008 I observed copulation between my Jungle male and my orange female. She laid one clutch in Feb of 10 fertile eggs. She then laid a second clutch of 9 fertile 1 slug at the end of March. While I did not observe copulation during the second introduction, my thoughts were that they must have obviously bred to produce the second clutch.
This orange female bulked up quite well after her second clutch but slowed her feeding in August. Due to her double-clutching, I kept her alone all summer, fall, winter, and spring to give her the rest she needed and time to build up extra needed nutrients. In January after coming out of hibernation, she was reluctant to feed much at all, still having decent body weight. In early February, to my suprise, she laid 10 perfect eggs and 2 slugs. No male had been with her since the second introduction in Feb. 2008.

Anyone's thoughts on a female retaining sperm for nearly a year?

Had another female this season which double-clutched with only one introduction. The first clutch was 5 good eggs and 7 slugs. The second would have 8 good and 2 slugs.

Will have to rethink selling any female that I know has bred a nice male!

South Plains Reptile

-----
Thank you,
Kevin Rhodes

Really had to laugh about this post when I read it earlier today. I'm not at all surprised that nobody else has replied. Breeders don't like to talk about this.
When I first got started in this hobby I was given a book as a gift. Breeding and Keeping Snakes by Dieter Schmidt, not the more commonly known book by Chris Mattison. I can't find my copy but I just looked online at Amazon and they have it. You can even search the book on their site. I found a passage on page 60 where he states that sperm retention of 5 years has been demonstrated.
I read that book cover to cover a couple of times. The information on sperm retention is why my females stay in a project and do not get moved around year to year.

Ever wonder why some hets don't prove out? Imagine if you bred a normal female with a 100% het and she did not produce that year. The next year you breed her with a visual morph. She gives you a clutch and you get what you think are hets. Then sell them as 100% hets and they do not prove out. She retained the sperm from the first breeding to a 100% het. The result is that not all the hatchlings are hets. You think the sire is the visual morph but the sire is the het from the year before. This could happen and does. Maybe even your holdbacks aren't hets. Your holdbacks are raised and bred to another visual morph in the hopes of producing a double homozygous hognose, etc. etc.
I think you get the idea. Good breeding / husbandry is what we all need to practice.

Thanks for the info.
-----
Thank you,
Kevin Rhodes
http://www.freewebs.com/spreptile/hognose.htm

Just wanted to share an experience:

I haven't had this happen with hogs, but I have a wild caught Florida King that I got a year and a half ago. I have never bred her. Last year (2008) she laid an early clutch of 5 good eggs and 2 slugs. This was about three months after she was caught. Having been surprised by this I just assumed that she had been bred prior to her capture. She then laid a second clutch around october of this past year (2008)of 5 good eggs and 1 slug without being re-bred. Then this year I did not cool her as she was slim and I felt that she needed some time off to gain back her weight. I fed her as much as she wanted. I checked on her last night and there are 6 good eggs and 3 slugs. I never bred her, so she must have retained sperm from her mate in the wild and surprisingly to me she has laid 16 good eggs throughout 3 different clutches and over a year and a half!

Thanks for sharing your experience.