Reptile & Amphibian Forums

here's a pic of a clutch showing a slug at lower left. and the one underneath the others at bottom right might be too. But the diff in the slug lower left and the rest of the eggs on the top layer illustrates the differences.

The female, btw, is an anery i bred x a snow, so the babies will all be anerys/alb.

She laid one slug outside the box before depositing the rest of the clutch inside. She still had two eggs in her when the pic was taken, which i'm guessing will be good eggs: In my experience females seem to flush out the bad eggs/slugs first.

Anyone have a theory why that might happen?

By the way, she bred only twice, the first time 4/20 with a very high sperm count observed under the scope. That timing is unusual in that deposition followed first breeding by only 30 days, it's usually about 40. Perhaps I caught her late in the ovulation cycle. The second breeding yielded a modest sperm count lending credence to the idea that a single "good" breeding is often all that's necessary to get a good if not perfect clutch of eggs.

Terry

I've found that the slugs come at either the beginning or the end. In other words, they sometimes drop slugs before the good eggs, and then other times at the end.

For example, I had one honduran last year that layed 9 good eggs, followed by 1 slug. Also had a nelson that had 1 slug five days after shed, then 5 good eggs, then a slug. This year I had a milk drop 1 good egg followed by 9 slugs. I've never seen slugs intermixed with the good eggs though.

Nice clutch!
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

the last egg was a slug. i don't see that happen nearly as often as with early eggs.

this is a good example of how LARGE data collections are necessary before we (ok, I) start generalizing: my experience with the distribution of slugs hasn't been the same as yours. More data = better generalizations.

How about some other forum readers sharing their experiences?

terry

>>I've found that the slugs come at either the beginning or the end. In other words, they sometimes drop slugs before the good eggs, and then other times at the end.
>>
>>For example, I had one honduran last year that layed 9 good eggs, followed by 1 slug. Also had a nelson that had 1 slug five days after shed, then 5 good eggs, then a slug. This year I had a milk drop 1 good egg followed by 9 slugs. I've never seen slugs intermixed with the good eggs though.
>>
>>Nice clutch!
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>>Paul Weaver
>>Carolina Herps

My experience with both Coxi and Hondurans has been bad eggs layed a day or two before the good ones. The bad ones were always laid outside the provided egg laying box and speratic throughout the cage. My possible Hybino project female laid 5 slugs all over the place and then two days later laid 12 good eggs in her egg box. Same with my Coxi this year 2 bad ones in different lacations and then 2 good ones in the box. I kept some of the bad ones, you never know.

Was she able to lay the last one on her own, or did you have to help in any way? Whenever my milks have 1 (slug) left in the oviduct, they seem to have a hard time getting it out, and some have died as a result of it. Just curious if you did any kind of intervention to help it out.
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

No, she just laid it on her own. i know what you mean, though--if there's a last slug or two the females are sometimes exhausted, i suppose, AND the slug has less firmness so less to push against to force it out. but she deposited this one on her own. I had a pyro a day or two ago that laid slugs and had one "egg" left in her, right at the vent, I worried it might be one that would need to be manually expressed but i left her with the box and she deposited it two days later. I'm not always that fortunate though.

terry

>>Was she able to lay the last one on her own, or did you have to help in any way? Whenever my milks have 1 (slug) left in the oviduct, they seem to have a hard time getting it out, and some have died as a result of it. Just curious if you did any kind of intervention to help it out.
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>>Paul Weaver
>>Carolina Herps

Terry,

My past experience tends to be the opposite of yours, in that the slugs came after the good ones were laid. I haven't had slugs coming out first before the good ones. Some of my herp friends have either slugs coming out in the beginning or coming out in the end... and like what Paul said/suggested, it would seem that the "in-between" slugs very rarely happens, if it happens at all.

Thanks,
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RAY