2009 breeding

[Iowarth]

First eggs of the season from outdoor lizards today. Clutch of 7 Podarcis siculus campestris eggs. Earliest in the year I have ever had them lay. A couple of Lacerta agilis are digging test burrows as are Laudakia stellio brachydactyla in greenhouse (in their case, eggs almost certainly carried over hibernation) , P. muralis just about bursting with eggs and Lacerta viridis/bilineata cooking nicely! Very strange that after such a severe and protracted winter things seem to have started earlier than usual.
Chris

[barb1]

Hi Chris,

Yes it's all been happening over the last few days! Very pregnant Lepida and already a nice clutch of eggs incubating and today female tort digging in the garden and produced eggs. Quick stuff seeing she only came out of hibernation at Easter. All very early. Could indeed be a very good breeding year after a hard winter.

[phil]

chris. do l.a ever multi-clutch under captive conditions?

[Iowarth]

Hi Phil. Most sub-species will occasionally double clutch and some individuals will as a matter of course. A colleague of mine actually has regular double clutching and even triple clutching with our native sub-species in outdoor vivaria.
Chria

[phil]

that can only be good news for the captive breeding program. its a shame that our wild colonies are not so prolific

[robpilley]

Hi all

just had a dig about in my lizard laying areas and so far found 64 eggs from P nigriventris, L bilineata, L agilis argus (normal and redback) and L exigua.
Still loads of females to drop yet plus several very fat trilineata, media and Gallotia to drop too.
Should be a good year (hopefully will make up for last years awful summer, ouch!)
Still early days so females who have dropped already may well second clutch, we shall see how the weather continues eh!

Rob

[barb1]

Great stuff Rob, I hope you are successful with the hatching. I've got tortoise eggs, one tort second clutch today and Lepida eggs already a month into incubation. Also some very gravid females, should be anytime with the hot weather.
At what temp. do you get success with the hatching?
B.

[robpilley]

eggs cooked at 27-29 degrees during the day and dropping to around 18-20 degrees C at night . The incubator is on a timer so it turns off at night, hence the temp drop then. I have found this better at giving better hatch rates as constant substrate temperature is very unnatural and can lead to hatching problems.

Rob

[barb1]

Interesting that you turn off the heat at night. Everybody seems to have their own ideas on what is best. Could this be done with tortoise eggs? I tend to keep the temp. around 30-31. How does it effect the male/female ratio?

[robpilley]

Hi there

I follow regime that I try and keep as close to natural as possible- no artificial lighting, no heating, only natural food and veg fed to insects, no supplements etc.
Sop my egg regime follows the same- warm by day and then cools off at night. The result is that eggs take longer time to cook than if constantly heated (up to a third to half longer) but the babies are generally larger and stronger (ive done experiments) and the hatching rate is higher (the year before last i had a 100% hatch rate on 3 clutches of bilineata eggs from 3 different females).
I thoroughly beleive in not rushing the lizards to do anything- they are hatched and left outside from the very beginning- even first yearlings go through a full blown winter outside, they need it. No rush to "grow them on indoors" as many people do, this only goes to screw them up in the future when they are put outside.

Rob

[robpilley]

As far as I know TDSD (Temperature Dependent Sex Determination) has not been recorded in Lacertas, but that doesnt mean to say it doesnt exist.
With this in mind the changing daily incubation temp balances this out (assuming TDSD does exisit in lacertas) and I have always found results in a roughly 50/50 sex ratio.

Rob

[Iowarth]

Hi there
I have to say I am totally in agreement with Rob. All of my non-tropical animals and even some of the sub-tropicals have normal daylight producing diurnal rhythms and temperature fluctuations. Similarly my egg incubation regime is similar to Rob's although mine is set by separate day/night thermostats, and juveniles are placed into outdoor greenhouse vivaria as soon as practical.

[barb1]

I am taking your advice and have started turning down the heat at night. It will be interesting to see the results.