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Curious...... has anyone done more research on the two fathers for one clutch theory?

beginnersbasics Apr 14, 2004 12:10 PM

I have heard stories and comments about clutches being split by sperm from two different males. I was wondering if anyone had "proven" this yet?

Any thoughts, comments and theories welcomed
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Lisa
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Replies (3)

Mattman Apr 14, 2004 01:15 PM

Rob Dachiu was the breeder who mentioned doing this only about 6 months ago in a post here on kingsnake, if any one else has done it I'm not sure. I might give it a try when I start breeding the clear nailed hypomelanistics. Breeding first two clear nailed dragons then after the first clutch is laid breed Foster who is not hypomelanistic to the female as well. If it does take this would be the best way to notice as the first clutch of two hypo X hypo clear nailed dragons should produce all clear nailed offspring in the first clutch, and in the second when Foster was used should have a mixture of dark and clear nailed offspring. The dark in theory being Fosters offspring. Fosters offspring now being het for hypomelanistic and the clear nailed offspring being from the original males retained sperm. This is how he explained it I believe and how he realized it had worked. Doing it with any other crosses other then a recessive breeding like above would be extremely hard to decipher one fathers offspring from the others. I'm not sure, but if it does work it is pretty darn cool, and would speed up any projects where recessive traits are being used that's for sure. I don't see any reason why it would not work. I don't know though??? but it's a very interesting topic, and would be awesome to see how it works out.
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kg Apr 14, 2004 07:55 PM

Yeah the Dachuis posted something on this a couple months ago that proved the different father, same clutch theory.
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Kylie

AIM: MatchFlameStick
ike

RiverRatt Apr 14, 2004 06:00 PM

would it not be that the sperm is not retained in a sense that it is stored, but the sperm actually at the time of mating fertillizes a holding of egg cells. The female does not per say retain the sperm but may retain a group of fertilized egg cells. When she lays her clutch she may have more fertillized egg cells than she can physically produce as fully matured layable eggs. She can A. absorb the proteins back into her body or B. she can retain these fertillized egg cells and lay another clutch. She could actually lay another clutch of eggs without being mated again and stand a chance of having a percentage of them being fertile. If another male would breed her and she has produced more unfertilized egg cells along with the fertilized group they could be also fertilized. I would say alot of this would depend on the females abillity to produce more mature ready to be fertillized egg cells than she can lay in a clutch and also the males abillity to fertilize all these egg cells. Anybody agree with this I don't really know much about beardies but in other reptiles it is this way. Leopard geckos are this way as in the size of their 2 egg clutches every 4 to 6 weeks varies on the amount of fertillized cells. Thus they may lay 2 eggs or 20 over a span of time. Not sure really any comments??

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