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.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]