Season comparison 07 vs. 08

[acpart]

In light of the recent posts about what kind of season we're having (I was one of the people who feel that this season has been worse than previous seasons), I compared some of the data from last season to this season. I'm at about mid season now, although I think most of my geckos are done laying for the season.

Last season at this time, I had 24 hatchlings
This season I have 15 (from about the same number of females)

However, although I had the same number of eggs (27or so) in the incubator at this time last season, with 2 clutches yet to be laid, only 9 more hatched out

THis season, I'm pretty sure I'll have 6 hatching within the next week and nearly all the other eggs still look good.

My conclusions:
a. I shouldn't count my eggs before they hatch
b. I may have a better season this year than last year, even though it started late and had many of the problems other people have described about this year
c. Some of the problems I'm having this year may have started around the middle of last year.
--I wonder if people who feel they are having a bad season this year see any foreshadowing from the end of last year.

Aliza

 

[mynewturtle]

Hi Aliza,

Sucks that so many seasons are going bad. I'm pretty sure in the other thread you noted you did nothing difrent this year then last year, even little things difrent?

Next year hopefully will be better. My season last year I had 97 leopard gecko eggs(not including other geckos please mind), and had about a 94.5% hatchrate, the end and beginning of the year were no difrent.

 

[godzillizard]

It's easy to blame it on things outside of our control--that way we don't have to take responsibility for it. But, it really seems that things beyond our control is whats to blame here. Maybe it's the weather? Or maybe it's from nutritional issues (switching supplements/foods/water source/etc.) these things can take quite a while to exhibit any adverse effects. From what I've gathered so far, I beleive it's a compound issue. I've been speaking with professional parrot breeders, feeder breeders, and geneticists--and they all have said the same thing--sounds like chemical contamination of some kind. My parrot breeder friend said that years ago, there was a new 'complete' pelleted diet that was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread, so most breeders switched to it. But they accidentally put one wrong chemical in the master mix, and thousands of parrots developed serious fecundity issues and most eventually died as a result of an unknown "cancer". Another one of my 'sources' has well over 20 years of genetics experience--from fruit fly experiments to the hardcore cattle industry, and even he admits that we might not be able to get a definitive answer. He informed me that quite a few years ago, a cattle supplement was accidently contaminated with the wrong chemical, and the results were similar--most folks who drank the milk from these cows had some very serious health issues because they ingested it through the cows milk. Time will tell :main_huh:

 

[acpart]

The only things that are different this season (and last season) from previous season(s) is I have some new males and have switched the male/female combinations. Last season I was convinced that my problem was that the males got tired of the females, stopped mating (I keep males and females together during breeding season) but the females continued to lay even after they ran out of stored sperm. This season I pulled each male out for a few days. It seems to have done the trick as far as fertile eggs but I did still have the problem with geckos being slow to ovulate and more late term fetal death. Since that goes along with what other people are reporting, there may be other factors as well.

Aliza