Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Shannon made an interesting observation in his post showing an ovulating female:

"I do believe that with stored sperm from previous breedings you will in fact become gravid even if I don't put her in with a male? "

(He was talking, I think, about getting eggs in 04, for example, fertilized ONLY by breedings in 04, breedings that preceded successful egglaying in 04)

If this can happen it poses obvioius problems for someone who breeds a female to a male of one genotype one year, and a different genotype the next (I've talked to people who proposed to breed a female to a diff genotype male for her second clutch! I worked hard to discourage that, because i HAVE gotten good eggs from a female who never bred to a male after laying her first clutch Those second clutch babies could never have any assumptions made about their heterozygosity--well, in fact, those breeders were prepared to make any number of assumptions, but they would have a high likelihood of being unfounded)

I've never intentionally not bred a female following a year in which she bred successfully, just to "test" the premise of retained sperm. Has anyone? Or has anyone ever got babies that could only be explained by sperm retained from the prior year?

PLEASE be careful and precise with your replies: I've had people tell me stories before of "inexplicable" babies, and under careful questioning in EVERY instance it has turned out they did, in fact, have the female with a male that could produce the "inexplicable" baby, they just discounted the pair's time together because they didn't see anything happen, the time was very very short, etc., etc.

peace
terry

Hey Terry,
Well this reminds of me when i was telling you that if my Sentz hypo pyro female double clutches this year I'm going to put her with an Applegate male for double hets, but now I've re-thought that idea and if she does double clutch again I'm gonna keep her with the same male shes been breeding with now-(the het-hypoerythristic male) just because as you were saying, you cant be sure what fatherd the babys-(the applegate male, or the het-hypoerythristic male ?) and it would be nicer to know-but if I get bad eggs in the first clutch then i dont see a problem with going ahead and using a new male for the 2nd, because it would seem that the first male you used didnt get any good sperm in. Last year, my hypo female had layed that first clutch of bad eggs-(6), she was only with the male-(same male that ws bred x her the first time) for 1 time, and then laid her 2ndd clutch of 3 good eggs. So it could of been that only 1 breeding fertilzed them, or there was good sperm retained from previous breedings...?, but then you would think that the first clutch would of been good right ?, I dunno, just comming up with ideas. But it does make you think especially when your breeding for ceratin traits, or trying to make hets, or homos are whatever. Good topic though I think,
Jeff Teel

When I said retained sperm I was trying to say that its my believe that one female can breed early on and when the time is right she can and will ovulate.Now if the sperm is already there she can become garvid without any more copulations?
I wasn't talking about the next year etc........
See,I showed a picture of a hypo that was ovulating very heavy and meant that she was bred a couple weeks ago but is just now ovulating.
I also stated that I won't bank on it and I have re introduced her with the male again.

I hope this makes more since now.

shannon

I only due this if its a totally different homo.I have made triple hets (ghost x albino) in one clutch and then bred albino x albino in the second.This you can control cause you will know when they hatch as to what fathered them.

shannon

>>I only due this if its a totally different homo.I have made triple hets (ghost x albino) in one clutch and then bred albino x albino in the second.This you can control cause you will know when they hatch as to what fathered them.
>>
>>shannon

Yeah, shannon, both your posts here make sense--an early copulation can certainly fertilize eggs that come along a few weeks later...and you're right tdhat if you do switch males for a second clutch, it's gotta either be a) a male of exactly the same genotype or b) one that will produce entirely different phenotypes, so you can tell from looking at the babies which male is the father.

terry

You asked if anyone had good eggs from only one breeding for a second clutch and for a following year. I have a amel corn that I purchased as one of three sub-adult males and seeing as I couldn't see anyone lying about a snake being a male so they could sell it for less I never sexed any of the animals and one turned out to be a female. She was seen being bred in the cage all 3 animals were in and was removed to a solo cage and fed heavily until she dropped the eggs. When she did drop I fed even heavier and she doubled even though she never even saw another male. She dropped and was feed even heavier then and ovulated huge ova and held these as though she was egg bound until the following season and late in the season (my eggs had already hatched) a male was introduced (not to breed just because of lack of space at the time) and she dropped eggs within 25 days but the phenotype made them obviously the new snow male's babies The rest of my females had dropped 2 months ago at the point of the clutch being deposited ie.. she wasn't going to drop on her own from stored sperm but she did ovulate and swell as if she was egg bound again after she laid last year...again. Back to the point of the question at hand. In my one experience sperm was stored for a second in the same season but even with a female that looked egg bound for 5-6 months she didn't drop eggs until a male was introduced the following season.

As far as the female ovulateing and retaining ova until the next season it was pointed out to me that the heavy feeding I was doing to help the poor little girl was more than likely the problem. This year I'm going to not feed her for 3-4 weeks after she lays her eggs and see if this helps.

I've got a female Hondo who layed five good eggs for me last year, but got eggbound 'bout halfway through the process and ultimately had to have surgery to remove an additional four eggs. There were complications and the oviduct tore during removal (we had tried aspirating first and I believe some egg contents ended up sticking the eggshell to the oviduct wall.)
At any rate, not knowing how well the interior injury healed, I made a point of not only keeping her away from males this year, but I didn't even cool her. The idea being that if she didn't produce eggs, we would never have to test the strength of that oviduct. Now however, she's beginning to look a little fat and I'm worried that she's begun ovulating. I can't feel any follicles (though I'm no expert at that) but I suppose if she does crank some eggs out and she's lucky enough to live through the experience, we can might get an answer to your question in a few months. I suppose this will also play into recent questions about fertility and cooling.
Input? I'll keep everyone posted.
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-Paul

>>Input? I'll keep everyone posted.
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>>-Paul

yeah, that'll be interesting to hear about.

fwiw, i've had females that had surgery to remove eggs, produce successfully the next year. also, my vet has observed that females have 2 oviducts, one on each side, and it seems they prdouce in one or the other, not both, in a given laying cycle--does anyone else have more insight into that?

terry

My vet also seemed to believe that only one oviduct is used during any given breeding cycle.
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-Paul