After 2 years of trying, one of my candoia bibroni australis is gravid. There’s so little info online about breeding this species, does anyone have insight or links to share?
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There’s an older reptiles magazine article (2011) that pops up and that’s a pretty good source for info. The others are ones you would probably have to read through and compare. I haven’t kept these guys personally, I just see people mention breeding is not as easy as people really think with these guys
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I had two females go a couple years ago. Not a lot to it really. I would have to check my notes but I want to say they went ~110 days from ovulation to dropping their clutches. I will say they are very prone to faking you out with an extended build time that is often mistaken for an ovulation and if you pull the males too soon they will reabsorb. For me, one of the key indicators that they were indeed gravid was the fact that they permanently switched to their “dark phase” colouration. That and the males began to completely ignore them
For the hatchlings, they basically shed the moment they are out and you need to make absolute certain that your humidity is correct so that they have a proper shed. If this first shed goes bad then you can almost guarantee the baby will crash out. That major hurdle out of thw way, your next issue is going to be that the babies are pretty much 1000% set on being live lizard feeders. If you do not have a mourning gecko colony already established then you will need to do that yesterday. If you cannot/do not want to do that then start making friends with small gecko breeders and see if you can get their culls/B-grade animals as feeders. The largest hatchling Candoia might be able to take the smallest/freshest crestie hatchling, but it will likely be a challenge for the mean so I do not recommend relying on those. Assist feeding is always an option as well, but it is an incredible challenge because the babies are so small and even red-hots are a little large for them so you have to rely on mouse tails. If you opt for that route I recommend only half the tail. Start with the widest end first because that way the tail hairs will lay flat as you work the tail down the oesophagus (and, consequentially, lift back up and act as a drag if/when they try to regurge). Expect failures. And regurges
Real talk, be ready for the loss of all of your hatchlings. I do not say this to be a jerk, I say it from real life experience and talking with a number of other very experienced breeders. Losing forty plus animals over the course of a year is a massive psychological blow (only made worse by losing all three of my female breeders to bad feeders)