Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My female albino fl. king just laid six eggs, 2 of which I'm *almost* sure are duds, once of which I just can't tell yet (hopefully I'll know in a few weeks). I have them in the incubator off to the side, just in case. But I was wondering if anyone's seen a reason some clutches have more duds?
She's gotten the same basic care as my hypo and white side--both of whom gave me better clutches last year when they were smaller than she is now. And she ate OK for the the time she was gravid--hoppers and small adult mice offered a couple times a week, she went about 50/50 on taking them.

On a happier note, I need to get off my butt and finish my fridge incubator cause mine is out of room with 3 clutches (two of which are big) in it, and I still have 1-2 more on the way.
-----
We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.

What causes duds?

Infertile eggs.

In other words, sperm did not get to them for one reason or another.
-----
1) Do you beleive what you observe or observe what you beleive?

www.Bluerosy.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So husbandry doesn't really impact it? I'd always kind of figured it did, but if not, then...I'm actually not sure if that's comforting or not.
I mean, I knew it meant they weren't fertilized, but if that was because the egg was bad, or if the sperm wasn't getting there, or if husbandrya nd support was off...
-----
We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.

There's many reasons sperm may not get to an egg and many of them could be husbandry related. I don't know all of them but here's a few:

Male produces bad sperm due to too high of temps during brumation and/or after brumation during breeding trials.

Too short of a brumation.

I've heard dehydration can cause poor sperm in males.

I think substandard nutrition can cause males to have low/bad sperm and females to have weak eggs as well.

The timing of the breeding could be off, ie to late after ovulation or too far ahead of ovulation. Usually females "know" when it's time for them to get bred, males will often try to breed them at any time but females usually only let them breed when it's the right time but I think in captivity sometimes females, especially young ones, let males breed them at off times.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/