Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, it's been a week now since my female chuck (Box Canyon, CA locale) laid 9 eggs. None of the eggs have mold on them yet, some of them have firmed up, taking over 4 days to do so,(none of them were plump when laid) and some of them seem firmer but still are slightly dented.

The possible fathers are nice red-backs from the Sentinel Plains AZ area. I would have preferred to breed a pair of chucks from the same locale, but at least a good number of males from the Box Canyon area have a decent amount of orange on their backs so any potential male offspring have a good chance of developing nice coloration.

I also did something not recommended at all. Don't be too harsh with me. I bought two red-backed males (the Sentinel Plains locale) from a seller that had housed the two males together in an outdoor pen. Both of them had come out of brumation earlier this spring. I had fully intended to house the males separately, but from the day I received them, I put them in the same indoor enclosure with the female.

Both of the males have been getting along just fine. I've seen no sign of aggression between the two though I know that can potentially change any day. They both developed a lot of waxy secretions from their femoral pores, and I couldn't really tell if one of them was dominant based on their behavior. However, after a month or so, I finally witnessed one of them doing pushups but couldn't tell who the behavior was directed towards, the other male or the female. I never witnessed any mating, but maybe I should assume that the male that did the pushups is the father (if the eggs turn out to be fertile that is), even though that is the only time I witnessed him doing pushups, until a few days ago when I put them outside for the first time. Within a minute of putting him outside, he started doing pushups like crazy.

Most people here and on the Chuckwalla and North American Desert Lizard Keepers Facebook pages seem to be saying that if the eggs are bad, they will mold over within a few days. However, I once had a clutch of four-horned chameleon eggs and all but one went bad around three to four months (5 months is full term). I opened every one of those eggs after they went bad, and not only did I not see any sign of embryogenesis, but I didn't seen any sign of vascularization whatsoever. Four-horned chameleon eggs are not known to go through a diapause stage. I assume the eggs were not fertile but somehow avoided getting mold, etc. However, one egg did go full term then when bad. I opened it up after it was obvious it wasn't going to hatch, fully expecting to find the inside the same as the other eggs. To my surprise though, I found a fully formed neonate that apparently was simply too weak to hatch. Fortunately, I've had many other clutches that developed normally.

So, finally, my question is, have any of you experienced a similar situation with chuckwalla eggs, infertile eggs going bad a week, month or even two months before going bad?

Thanks,
Perry

I have had infertile eggs last for weeks and one even lasted two months until it finally collapsed and it was obvious that it never progressed.

As for those males, I hope you don't plan to wait until something terrible happens to those males before you separate them. That can't be easy on that lone female either. Do you have another enclosure that you can move one of the males into?

Thanks for the info Donna. That's what I expected. I wonder why though, in most instances, it seems people report that infertile eggs go bad and mold over within a few days. How can infertile eggs in some instances go so long (months in your situation) without going bad? It seems that mold spores are everywhere, but I expect at least some keepers would say mold spores were not as abundant in those situations. However, I expect there is something chemically different between some infertile eggs versus others. Just a hypothesis.

Yes, I do have another enclosure, and I keep telling myself I need to separate the males. Would you expect one of the males to turn on the other suddenly, as in overnight? Or, do you think I would notice a gradual increase of aggression? In any case, I know it's not worth taking any chance.

The person I bought them from at the end of February, from what I know anyway, is well respected among chuck keepers and kept them together in an outdoor enclosure for some time. However, they were not housed with a female. The suggestion was made however that it might be best if I were to separate them, not only because I would be putting them with my female, but also because they were being put into a new environment.

The opposite can be true, too. I'm an ex-leopard gecko breeder and I've had babies hatch from fuzzy eggs more than once. Fertile eggs should harden up in the first hour.