Still early?

[AcidicAngel]

Yep, hello... Another thread from me. This time it's about ovulation in females. We have three females planned this year, four possibly if the fourth carries on growing as she is.

The three females ovulated(or looked to be doing so, pink spot and all) in January but the male seemed to be lost and ignored them. Being that it was January, we put it down to him not being ready.

Anyway, we've been checking our girls every so often since then and still there is no sign of a second ovulation and now our male is showing interest in the girls by rattling his tail when he see's them.

Is it still too early(breeding season runs from Feb - Sept doesn't it?) or is there something we can do?

Last year our male and one of the females bred with no trouble, she ovulated and he mated her with ease - Four healthy hatchlings resulted.
So far they just don't seem to be matching up lol.

 

[Shrapnailed]

From what Ive read the females can store the sperm for a good while. Why not just let them mate?

 

[Music City Geckos]

Leopard geckos don't really have a set breeding "season". Personally I cool mine down through December, warm them up and get them fat. This year I had my first eggs January 23. Right now I have 9 clutches between 3 females. Females at their peak will ovulate every 3 weeks while in their breeding season. It's funny because they will ovulate and have eggs at the same time. Some people don't cool down their animals. I think it is a more natural approach to start the breeding.

 

[AcidicAngel]

From what Ive read the females can store the sperm for a good while. Why not just let them mate?

Because the one time we have tried the females with the male(separately) when they "should" have been due to ovulate again they bit him... Female leo's generally won't let a male mate with them unless they are ovulating and ours clearly agree with that. They didn't do any damage but I won't be trying them again until they are ovulating to prevent it getting that far.

Leopard geckos don't really have a set breeding "season". Personally I cool mine down through December, warm them up and get them fat. This year I had my first eggs January 23. Right now I have 9 clutches between 3 females. Females at their peak will ovulate every 3 weeks while in their breeding season. It's funny because they will ovulate and have eggs at the same time. Some people don't cool down their animals. I think it is a more natural approach to start the breeding.

We cooled ours too, hence the ovulation in January, but the male not being ready just squashed that attempt. So now we've been waiting, checking them when we feed them every 2 days and not a single ovulation since.

 

[Shrapnailed]

Because the one time we have tried the females with the male(separately) when they "should" have been due to ovulate again they bit him... Female leo's generally won't let a male mate with them unless they are ovulating and ours clearly agree with that. They didn't do any damage but I won't be trying them again until they are ovulating to prevent it getting that far.



We cooled ours too, hence the ovulation in January, but the male not being ready just squashed that attempt. So now we've been waiting, checking them when we feed them every 2 days and not a single ovulation since.

Sounds like you have some "hot" females. My female bit back at my male too. Just took her out and put her back with my male again two days later and they mated. Another trick you could try to help her ovulate is to cut a square of the paper towel that you are using as substrate from the males living area. She will smell his scent and start to ovulate

 

[AcidicAngel]

Sounds like you have some "hot" females. My female bit back at my male too. Just took her out and put her back with my male again two days later and they mated. Another trick you could try to help her ovulate is to cut a square of the paper towel that you are using as substrate from the males living area. She will smell his scent and start to ovulate

"Hot" Females would suggest they themselves do not get along with males at all and are generally aggressive since a "Hot" female is one that acts like a male. Since they are calm with each other(when we have them out, we sometimes have the group of three females out together and there's no aggression) and one of them did mate last year(that's actually the most aggressive out of the three so far) - I wouldn't call them "hot" females. I would just say they are not ready to mate and so they are not letting him mate. My guess is your female came into ovulation after being with your male and that's why she allowed him to mate her, they need to be ovulating to produce eggs anyway.

I'll try taking some of the substrate from his to theirs and see if that helps. From what I've read the scent of a male should cause a female to ovulate but doesn't always work.