Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just had female Juarez agalma lay eleven eggs....all fertile! This ties the largest clutch ever in my experience working with these guys. The fact that all eleven appear fertile is what I am the happiest about. Anyone have any bigger zonata clutches? Mitch I think you have had females lay this many eggs before, yes? Here is a pic of the proud mama and eggs.

Juarez Wonders

Allan, that should take the sting out of the black widow scene. At least a little!! Congrats bro.. huge clutch!!

Joe

It definitely helps and I was due some good karma after that debacle. I'll really be happy though if the Martirs lay fertile eggs. Any moment now the first one should lay.
Juarez Wonders

That is incredible! Like having two or three clutches in one!
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

9 was the biggest I ever had and it was from a Juarez agalma. Awesome dude!

PL

That's awesome!
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Awesome to get 100% fertility on a clutch that size.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

Allan I would be very interested to read some details on that clutch.

What is the age, length and weight of that female?

What is her track record, like how many times has she laid eggs before, what years did she lay them and what size were the clutches? That's alot of info so I'd be happy just to know when her last clutch was and how many eggs(fertile/infertile) was in it.

How many sires were bred to her this year and what was his, or their, age(s)?

Thanks for any info you care to share.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

Allan,

Congrats on the clutch! Very nice to see. As to your question, I've had four clutches of thirteen eggs from several females, and one Kern Co. female lay fourteen. That same Kern Co. female went on to double-clutch that year and lay six more eggs! All of her 20 eggs hatched that year...so I'd say she was pretty successful that year!!

Mitch

Damn Mitch. I thought I remembered you telling me about those. That's crazy.

To your point Aaron, I bred all my females to mutiple different males this year. This is her fourth year of laying eggs. Her first year she gave me seven out of seven good eggs. The last two years she has had all bad eggs. Go figure. And then of course this year she hit a homerun. I'm 95% positive that when I get bad eggs, it's the fault of the males having bad sperm.
Juarez Wonders

Thanks for the info Alan. I haven't bred agalma in many years but when I did I think I never got more than two years of fertility in a row. I never got 100% fertility in any clutch but I do seem to remember getting hatchling two years in a row then skipping a year or two.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

My experience was the same. I had 2 females that I bred to the same male. The females would lay good eggs on alternating years, but not in the same year. So I knew the male was fertile since one female would produce viable eggs in each season.
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Rick Staub

That's very interesting Rick. If I had one male that's what I used and later on when I had two males I always bred both males to each female and I never used a microscope, so I could never tell if the bad clutches were due to the male(s) or the female(s).

It was only later when a Grayband breeder I'm sure you're familiar with, named Dan Johnson, postulated that diet may be the cause of bad clutches, that I began to think females' condition may have something to do with hatch rates.

I also think environmental cues can affect hatch rates. By that I mean females need to ovulate at the right time and they need to let the males breed them at the right time. I think in captivity the females can get out of sync to where they may let a male breed them either too late or too early for optimum fertility. I think this might often be why first time breeder females lay bad clutches.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

Interesting stuff guys. I wonder how much more, or if there is more, calcium in lizards? Seems in the wild zonata only breed every other year anyway, but I would assume this is due to conditioning, but who knows. By the way, I have had the same experiences. Good clutches every other year.

Joe

BTW I have one female that has given me at least eight fertile eggs for the last five years in a row. She is a champ breeder.
Juarez Wonders

I would say she is just that!!! Is that animal larger and stays heavier then the others? Just curious.

Joe

Yep. She is the consistently the largest female gram wise every year. Just an absolute pig of a mouse eater.
Juarez Wonders

At least high elevation pops are every other year breeders in the wild. Just not enough time to recover enough mass to breed every year most seasons. Feeding is limited in the spring, at least in the Sierra, so not much time to bulk up before it is consistently warm enough and breeding begins.
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Rick Staub