Breeding Projects 2009/10 Breeding Projects
| 2009/2010 Breeding Projects |
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Our 2009/2010 breeding season has come to an end and we ended up with 16 beautiful hatchlings from two pairs, Rodney x Matilda and Perch x Eve. Please see the details below on how this breeding season progressed and see Coming Soon under the Available tab if you are interested in owning one of these little beauties. My 2009/2010 breeding projects are starting a little later this year than normal but that doesn't mean they will be any less exciting. I had lots of young males and females breeding for the first time this year and some of them didn't work out so I'll try again with them next year. Two pairing did work out, however. Eve was bred with Perch for some more entry-level chondros if you like that more "wild-type" green chondro with a blue dorsal stripe and maroon neonate combinations. It looks like a sucessful paring of Matilda and Rodney again this year for another smashing high yellow pairing. The offspring from their 2008 pairing are stellar! Rodney x Matilda - High yellow pairing
Rodney is a Sorong x Biak outcross that has produced many high yellow and tri-color offspring. Matilda is 25% Lemontree female produced by Jack Sadovnik's pairing of Switch x Blondie. This is a repeat pairing between Rodney and Matilda. In 2008 they produced a clutch that had a consistant number of stunning HY offspring. The results were truly outstanding! I expect similar results from them this year. Estmated price: $2,000 - $2,500 Update 1/12/10: Rodney was placed with Matilda and copulations were taking place within an hour of introduction. So, this will be a repeat of my stellar 2008 pairing between these two. Update 2/23/10: Matilda refused food and is looking bluer and very puffy. She looks to be developing follicles and Rodney is not showing her a lot of attention. Update 3/15/10: Matilda is still blue and looking even puffier. I expect an ovulation any day now. Rodney is back on food and completely ignoring her. That's usually a good sign! Update 3/23/10: Matilda ovulated 3/22-23 and it was large and normal looking. I expect eggs to be laid around the second weekend in May. If all goes as planned I expect eggs to hatch around the last week in June. Update 4/27/10: Matilda's pre-lay shed was 4/19 so I expect eggs around May 4th. She is investigating her nest box at night and basking during the day. She looks great! If she lays good eggs, I will be artificially incubating them and they should hatch around the week of June 21st. Update 5/4/10: Matilda laid 18 perfect looking eggs this morning. I had to leave for work but came home around lunchtime to take her off the eggs and incubate them myself. I have never had eggs so adheared to one another that even my method of dental floss wasn't working to separate them. Two eggs weeped slightly when detached and I decided to stop trying to separate them for fear of more damage. So, 4 of the eggs are separate in the incubator and the other 14 are being incubated in a large clump.
Update 5/16/10: The eggs are looking great and all appear to be doing fine. Almost two weeks into incubation with a new incubator and things look great. Update 6/8/10: One of the damaged eggs in the clump died and affected the other two eggs it was close to. All three of those eggs were removed from the clump and the remaining 11 eggs in the clump and the 4 separate eggs look great. Still expecting eggs to start hatching around the 22nd of June. Update 6/22/10: Eggs started hatching last night and it looks like there are ten live babies when I finished pipping the remaining eggs this morning. One had emerged fully and was dead for no known reason, two eggs died this past weekend not fully developed, and two were dead inside the egg - one for unknown reasons and one with a deformity. All the eggs that did not make it were in the clump of eggs I incubated together. The four separated eggs appear to be alive and well. Current status 6/24/10: 9 healthy yellow hatchings emerged over the last several days. I'm excited to see how this clutch turns out. Should be a clutch of stunning animals if they turn out anything like their 2008 siblings. See the Coming Soon section under the Available tab for more information. Perch x Eve - Bringing out the blues pairing
Perch is a Highland-type male that was bred for the first time with a Sorong-type female in 2005. One of his maroon offspring that ended up with beautiful blues on her was Eve. I decided to do a linebreeding between father and daughter to see if I could amplify the beautiful blues both of these chondros have. This will be Eve's first pairing and it should produce all maroon offspring. 5 maroons and 2 yellows successfully hatched! Estimated price: $500-600 Update 1/14/10: Perch was put in the cage with Eve and he showed immediate interest. Update 1/20/10: I saw the first successful copulation on the morning the morning of 1/16/10. Breeding continues each day/night. Update 2/23/10: Eve is off food and Perch is still actively copulating with her. She doesn't look to be developing follicles yet but she's certainly headed in the right direction. Update 3/15/10: Perch completely lost interest in Eve earlier this week and went back on food. Eve had most certainly been developing follicles because she had a large, normal looking ovulation that started last night (see pic below). I will probably allow her to maternally incuabate these eggs if all goes well:
Update 3/23/10: Eve ovulated 3/14-15 so I expect eggs to be laid by the last week in April. If all goes well I am expecting eggs to hatch around the weekend of June 19th. Current Status 4/27/10: Eve had a successful pre-lay shed on 4/12. She laid eggs inside the nest box on 4/25. We were moving that weekend and I slept through the entire egg laying so I have no idea how many eggs she has in her coils right now. My guess, based on her small stature is around 10 eggs. The eggs she's allowed me to view look very healthy. This will be my first attempt at maternal incubation. So far, she's doing great! I expect a hatch date of June 13th. Eve, perfectly coiled around her eggs:
Update 5/16/10: Eve continues to go a great job incubating what appear to be good looking eggs. She shifts the eggs around inside the egg box and sometimes lets me get a glimpse of the eggs. So far so good! Update 6/8/10: Eve has been a great mother and it starting to appear a little more agitated by my daily peeking in to check on her. I think she's ready to get off these eggs have have a good meal or drink of water. I expect to see little maroon heads poking out around the 13th of June. Current status 6/13/10: The first baby head poked out early on 6/12. I decided to leave Eve on the eggs since she seemed to be doing a great job on her own. Looking back, I'm not sure I should have but I'll be posting an article on the web site with details on how this experiment went. I was not happy with the end hatch result but some chondro babies are better than none. Out of 14 eggs laid 5 maroon and 2 yellows survived. Details to follow! See the Coming Soon section under the Available tab for more information.
Joe Black x Fern - Melanistic pairing
I will be repeating this pairing in the 2010/2011 year. Stay tuned! Squeeze x Tater - High yellow pairing
I will be repeating this pairing in the 2010/2011 year. Stay tuned! Fleck x Isis - High white Aru outcross pairing
I will be breeeing Isis in the 2010/2011 year, possibly with this same male. Stay tuned! Perch x Freckles - High white Aru x blues outcross pairing
I will be attempting to breed Freckles again in the 2010/2011 year. Stay tuned! |
