# Sulcata fertility.



## murdocjunior (Sep 12, 2012)

Is there a way to check a male if he is producing good sperm and not duds? My female sulcata laid 3 clutches as of year and half ago and only the first clutch were fertile and nothing else was any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks


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## wellington (Sep 12, 2012)

Bump. I wouldn't know.


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## EricIvins (Sep 12, 2012)

Fertility issues usually arise with the Female, not the Male.......Don't know why everyone is so quick to blame the Males, but I digress......These issues can arise from a myriad of different problems, all of which starts with the ambient conditions the animals are in........Heat, stress, diet, food quality, photo period, etc can cause a bunch of issues for producing Females.......


An FYI - My Males and Females have not been breeding since June, but have recently started back up again. I will probably have the majority of this years production laid in the same time frame because of it, along with another two or three clutches per Female by December/January........Weird year though. The Sulcatas are usually very consistent producers.........


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## tortadise (Sep 12, 2012)

Well Is your male getting good connection? Also how big is your male? Sometimes smaller males and larger females cant get good fertilization. As well as when the female hits her egg cycle the male or males need to fertilize them thus alot of breeding. Sometimes if they are seperated some of the sperm retention in the female dies off and lowers the fertility rate of the eggs. Could also be her first few clutches? How big is she and was the year and a half ago her first time to lay eggs?



EricIvins said:


> Fertility issues usually arise with the Female, not the Male.......Don't know why everyone is so quick to blame the Males, but I digress......These issues can arise from a myriad of different problems, all of which starts with the ambient conditions the animals are in........Heat, stress, diet, food quality, photo period, etc can cause a bunch of issues for producing Females.......
> 
> 
> An FYI - My Males and Females have not been breeding since June, but have recently started back up again. I will probably have the majority of this years production laid in the same time frame because of it, along with another two or three clutches per Female by December/January........Weird year though. The Sulcatas are usually very consistent producers.........



This is also true as well. I do say though I hear from everyone else this year was an odd year for them. I havent noticed anything different in my group as of yet. Wonder what the deal is. Did yours just not lay this year or delay?


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## EricIvins (Sep 12, 2012)

tortadise said:


> Well Is your male getting good connection? Also how big is your male? Sometimes smaller males and larger females cant get good fertilization. As well as when the female hits her egg cycle the male or males need to fertilize them thus alot of breeding. Sometimes if they are seperated some of the sperm retention in the female dies off and lowers the fertility rate of the eggs. Could also be her first few clutches? How big is she and was the year and a half ago her first time to lay eggs?
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Females cycled once or twice, then follicle production ceased untill a few days ago. The Males have no interest if the Females are not cycling, so naturally they are not going to breed or even court. I did add a new Female to the group, which coincided with the explosion in follicle production in the other Females. Within a day or two of being introduced into the group, she started follicle production, then all the other Females followed. This tells me that they stopped follicle production for what ever reason, and the added pheromones or other chemical cues from the new Female jump started the others. I've seen this happen with many Reptile species, so there is some kind of significance there........


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## murdocjunior (Sep 13, 2012)

Well my male is 20" and female 17" and yes 1 1/2 years ago was her 1st clutch with 16 out of 17 eggs hatched and the other 2 clutches were all infertile. It seems like The male mounts the female everyday, could that be a bad thing for the female?

She did lay this year but she never layed them she had dug a few test holes but decided to just lay a few eggs above ground which was weird and they were all infertile.


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