Sperm Retention

[727geckokid]

I know that females can retain sperm for quite some time my question is Say i breed a female with a male and i get a clutch or so from her and that male.. If i breed her to another male will she take the sperm from the new male and what will happen to the old sperm? Thank you for any comments and help..:main_thumbsup:

 

[fallen_angel]

I am not sure if much research has been done on sperm competition from multiple males. I know that Stevie was in the middle of doing some research, perhaps he'll have some info to share.

The biggest problem with breeding to multiple males is knowing which babies came from which father? If you were to do it, you'd have to make sure that there would be a definite way to distinguish this.

We tried to do a little research on this ourselves this past season. We bred a Patternless female to a Mack Snow male, and let her lay three clutches. After the third clutch was laid, we then bred the Patternless female to a Mack Snow Patternless male. This way, there would be no question with who the father was. If any kind of normal or Mack Snow baby hatched, we knew it would be from the Mack Snow father; and if any kind of Patternless or Mack Snow Patternless hatched, we knew it would be from the Mack Snow Patternless father. She laid 3 more clutches after the pairing with the second male; and unfortunately, all three clutches ended up being empty eggs.

Obviosuly we cannot conclusively say that this happened because of the two breedings to two different males, but it's enough for us to not want to try it again for now.