I have a girl that gave me some really weirdly calcified eggs last year. All the eggs went bad within a week or two. She also went really long and didn’t lay until day 49. I am planning on giving her this whole year off. If she builds and reabsorbs the follicles, has anyone seen them not go for a few years after that? I have heard that after reabsorbing sometimes the skip a few years. Would it be better to breed her this year regardless? Note she laid April 15th last year so I know she would be getting close for this year.
I haven’t heard that either. I usually go 2 on 1 off with my newer/younger girls, 3 on 1 off with bigger girls in their prime and back to 2-1 with older more mature girls. Of course this is all assuming they are healthy, up to appropriate weight and had a good previous season w/o complications. But like anything in this hobby or any breeding each case needs to be evaluated and handled on an individual basis with the animals health taking top priority.
As for your clutch above, the eggs look mostly normal enough. If they all went bad it could be an incubation issue (temp/humidity/got wet) but since they look like they started out normal enough I would bet it could’ve been a fertility issue w the male. Did you use him with any others and what was the outcome of that clutch? Are his temps too high? Males need a good cool down or temp gradient for healthy sperm production.
The male used has produced a few clutches for me and a a lot more clutches for a previous breeder. All eggs had veins and went bad quickly. The only difference has been the calcification of this one. My incubator was holding multiple other clutches at the same time as this. They were not viable long enough to get wet. The clutches he has produced for me were all healthy and 7-8 eggs with no slugs.
Not completely sure then, could’ve been just 1 of those things. I’ve had eggs not calcify like that and still hatch healthy. It could still be a male issue of possible overuse. Try the pairing again and see if same thing happens.
