Sorry, yeah, i left out all kinds of information. Yes, the male sired 2 females. This one that were talking about and another, whos eggs just started pipping today.
The way i did the pairings - they were all 3 days apart, and id alternate the 2 females.
For example, it would be:
4/1/25 - paired with female 1
4/4/25 - paired with female 2
4/7/25 - paired with female 1
4/10/25 - paired with female 2… and so on.
Was trying to ensure both females received fertile sperm. Instead of pairing with the same female 3 or 4 times then the second female 3 or 4 times if that makes sense?
My thinking was if the first clutch was all infertile maybe the timing was off, but that since i saw 4 successful pairings, and she probably received +sperm, the second clutch/ovulation possibly would have used stored/retained sperm, since it had only been a couple few months, and at least made 1 or 2 good eggs.
Am i way off on that? It seems logical to me, but Lord knows that doesn’t mean much .
I am aware a second clutch would normally be less fertile than the first - but thats only if the first eggs were successfully fertilized.
If the window was missed, it seems like retained sperm would be the next thing to start thinking about.
If im not thinking of that correctly please definitely let me know.
Side note, speaking of second clutch fertility. The other female that this male was with also doubled, also without re-introduction. First was 18 eggs, 2 of those being slugs - 88+%, second clutch was 13 eggs, 1 slug - 92%
Not typical, i know. But i doubt the problem is with the male.
So my thought, which could be wrong, is that you had two factors possibly working against you. One, you missed the female’s ovulation. Two, the male might not have had enough down time to have high sperm potency based on the every three day schedule.
I was going to ask that same question. I was thinking maybe the male might have been able to successfully fertilize the first female but that’s it. There was some scientific debate a few years around some evidence indicating that males may have only a finite amount of fertile sperm for a season. The theory was that they recovered between breedings and continued to mate willingly, but were not producing fertile sperm after the first *X-*number of pairings. ** if the female bred was the one who didn’t have fertile eggs, that doesn’t make sense as am explanation.
I see what you’re saying, but I’m thinking this is unlikely. I have no data on it, apart from the lower fertility in second clutches. There’s a lot we don’t know so maybe, but this would have surprised me a lot.
Is it possible that Female #2’s fertile eggs were produced from retained sperm from last season? Didn’t remember if she had been paired before.
No. While i appreciate and enjoy almost all reptiles, I’ve been a kingsnake specific kind of guy until recently , when i finally took note of how cool alot of the corn snake patterns, colors and combinations of them are. All of the adults I bought as hatchlings in 2021 and waited until this year to put them together. I guess that could possibly have something to do with it as well? Her first year was just unproductive maybe? Nice simple answer.
Anyway, like i said, even though i was looking forward to seeing her offspring the most out of all 5 of my adult females, im glad i dont have almost 40 more eggs/hatchlings right now.
Im used to kings making less than a dozen eggs a year. Plus ive read several places that a female cornsnakes first year would likely make smaller amounts of eggs, i got between 15-18 each female, then another 12 from that double. I was expecting maybe 8-10 each. Its taken care of already though. The new ars hatchling setup is on the way.
I love ARS! I have purchased from them in the recent past plus I get all my feeders there. Jason Aeriel, and John and great! Plus all the others there.
Gotcha. Yeah, this may be a first-time/primigravida thing. Sometimes a female’s first clutch is less than stellar for no reason we can figure out, then they go on to have zero trouble.
You mentioned numbers and expected results. That’s smart to look into, but as you have seen, the reality is that things can be all over the place with first timer females. Males too, for that matter. For me personally, several primigravidas last year produced fantastic, fertile clutches. This season, one was excellent, one was decent, three had teensy clutches once the bad eggs were tossed. Teensy as in two eggs expected to hatch from each. So yeah, they can be anywhere that first season. The good news is that for most, in subsequent years they seem to figure the hormones out and you get a more “normal” season.
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