Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If a female can retain sperm after laying a clutch and still have a second fertile clutch from sperm, what happens if you put her with a new male after she lays the first clutch? Will the eggs be from dad #1 or dad #2? Kind of sounds like a show for Jerry Springer- "Who's my baby beardies daddy"! Anyone know anything about this? Thanks, -Brian.

As far as know there have not been any in depth studies on sperm retention in bearded dragons. I remember reading an artical a few years back that stated that it does not occur in dragons however I disagree. I had a female that laid 2 good clutches after not being with a male for more than 3 months. In my many years of raising dragons this was the only time it ever happend so I dont believe it is nearly as common as in geckos. I think that if a female did retain sperm and you put her in with another male the babies could come from the first male, the second or even both.
Has any one else had this experience?
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Paul Morlock
of CaptiveCreations and
Retail Sales Rep. for Sandfire Dragon Ranch

She said that they have done this and the clutch that is laid after being with the second male will be a mixture of both, mostly being from the second male. It has been awhile since we had this discussion but I'm pretty sure that's what she said. I do remember that she said there would deffinately be a mixture. Clutches after that she sadi are generally from the second male.

Robert Wood

I dont know about the possibility of having a combo of fathers in a clutch. But I can tell you that I've had females that I tried to retire lay 1-3 fertile clutches the following season (after not having been with a male for over a year). Pretty amazing!
Dana

I'm with Paul....I have a female, who when young would be mated once, then seperated and she would lay from 3-5 clutches from the one mating. I have a couple of girls who lay 2 clutches after being mated once. So obviously they can retain sperm, but as far as parenthood with a second mating from a different male, I don't know how without genetic testing you could determine the outcome.....like with cats, they have done the testing and multiple males can father in a litter, but with dogs, after the first mating, all other sperm is rejected somehow.....so who knows, until they do a study, one can only guess.
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Tracey
Tracey's Beardies
www.beardiecrazy.com

Rescued dragons that have not been in with a male for several months and not in good physical condition, will sometimes once they are healthy again suddenly be gravid with fertile eggs.

Its like their bodies knew they were in bad condition and could not support being gravid and stored the sperm for a more opportune time and when that happens... their bodies allowed the eggs to fertilize........ not that they will always store it or hold off..... we just know that this happens sometimes with dragons in poor condition when they get in good shape and healthy again. We DO NOT recommend hatching the eggs.

It still sucks as they just came out of a bad time and then get drained with egg production. But it is something we know to watch for.

The record that I know of for retaining spearm was 16 months, from one breeding season to the the next year!
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www.reptilerooms.com

There is some sperm retention in females. We have seen sperm stored for up to 4 clutches from a mating/matings from a particular male. I say a mating/matings and not one mating because males will mate repeatedly to females sometimes. We have seen mating take place 2 or 3 times in one given day from an individual male. Therefore, unless you are there 100% of the time that the animals are housed together you cannot know for sure how many times he has mated to the female in question.

Females may be able to retain sperm into the next breeding season, but we don't believe this is the 'norm'. One of the reasons for this belief is that when we have problems with infertile clutches it is usually with the first clutches of a breeding season in experienced females. For example, our first three clutches from this breeding were all infertile and these females were all producing fertile clutches at the end of their cycle last year. Were it common for them to retain sperm through seasons, I would think we wouldn't be having many infertile 1st clutches. In our experience, infertile 1st clutches are most common with 2nd year and older animals. We believe that the female is further advanced in her cycle and the males are just 'too late' to catch the 1st clutch before it moves out of the oviduct resulting in infertility.

Sperm retention does make sense, as it would be to the animals' benefit to retain sperm from a single breeding in the wild. They could lay 2 or 3 clutches of eggs without having to repeatedly subject themselves to predators by breeding in between every clutch.

Yes a single clutch of eggs can definitely have two different fathers. We have done this for awhile; Although years ago we did not know 100% who the dad was on every animal. You can do this selectively with some degree of accuracy in some breedings by comparing characteristics of the older offspring to the fathers in question.
Within the last few years though, while working with the recessive hypomelanistics and depending on the breeding we can know for sure 100% who the father is in any given clutch of eggs. Breeding 2 males to one female and knowing for sure which offspring came from which father allows us to accomplish more at times within any given year for our own breedings.
A perfect example would be last year when we bred one of our male 'Normals' to a recessive hypomelanistic female. We did this to create 'hets' for our future breedings. He successfully bred the female at the beginning of her cycle, before she laid any eggs. Once she laid her first clutch of eggs we put her in with a hypomelanistic male and he remained with her for the rest of the breeding season.
The babies in both the first and second clutch were normal looking and therefore hets.
The third clutch had a mixture of both hypomelanistics and normal looking (hets) from the first male.
The fourth clutch was mostly hypomelanistics with only a few hets.
With the 5th clutch being all hypomelanistics.

Notice that the hatchlings were normal looking in the second clutch even though the hypomelanistic male fertilized her in between the first and the second clutch. This was probably because he fertilized her in the latter part of her cycle or perhaps it was not a successful mating. Much depends on when in a female's cycle that a male successfully fertilizes her that determines if his offspring shows up in the next clutch of eggs or the following clutch of eggs.

Example : Back to the first three infertile clutches we had this year. The males were seen and recorded to have bred the 3 females that laid infertile clutches. But it was during the latter part of their cycle, 7-10 days before the laying of their first clutch. Note that every female's cycle is different. Some laying every two weeks and others laying every 3,4,5 or 6 weeks apart. Therefore the timing of the actual breeding can differ yet yield the same results. (Good news is that these 3 females should be fertile for their next clutch of eggs!)

(I will include a few pictures of hatchling hypomelanistics and hets - as you can see the difference in the hatchlings from day one.)
the first pic is a het and a hypomelanistic coming out of the egg
the second pic is of an 8 month old a brother and sister. One het and one hypomelanistic
the third pic is also clutchmates about 2 weeks old
the fourth pic is of 4 clutchmates. One is a het and the other three are hypomelanistics
the fith pic is of a few more clutchmates a couple weeks old.

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