I stopped by to check on the Monitors before I headed out of town with my wife and daughters and found an early Christmas present: A clutch of 17 good looking and 1 possible infertile eggs from a Reptile Guru High Yellow Male to a Black Dragon Female. This pair was introduced on Nov 5th and originally I had the Male Black paired up with another female Black (I have 3 Black females) in the month prior, and I never caught any copulations between the two, although that female is a LTC WC and she is not exactly "easy to work with", so I thought that maybe swapping males when the next Black female would cycle would get things going. The very same day I introed the Female Black and male Reptile Guru and they were locked the same day all day, and rather than swap the Black male back in, I figured I better leave them paired up to completion, as to not "muddy" the breeding with the possibility of not knowing which male fathered the clutch. When I swapped males, my female Sumatran was also starting a cycle so I put the Black male with her in the other large enclosure I use for breedings/introductions, and they were also copulating that same day. So the same situation applies there, as far as keeping them paired and not introducing a different male back in. Lots of people and myself included seem to want to know how the Black Dragon genetics work so now I should hopefully have 2 clutches to show the results.
The Female Black Dragon clutch came in at 25 days post first confirmed copulation/introduction (same day), and she is a small girl at just over 3' long (bred to a 7.5' male). 17 or 18 eggs in there made her feel and look like a football.
The Sumatran female should lay soon although her last clutch was 25 eggs (all still look good in incubator) and she laid 35 days post first confirmed copulation. She is larger at about 4' long, but she also looks very large at this point.
This Female Black Dragon laid a clutch of infertiles for me about 2 weeks after I got her, about 3 months ago. Interesting thing about her is, she has laid 4 infertile clutches for my friend Jim Heck who has had her for the last year or so, and the one for me, and she ate a few eggs from each clutch when they were infertile, and did not always nest properly, but this clutch was nested in a nice burrow, 2 feet deep, with an enlarged chamber at the end, all nicely packed in there similar to my other female. They were 85 degrees. I caught her when she was done, pulled the eggs and left her alone. When I returned she had built up a large mound over the entire area similar to what I saw with the last clutch of my other female.
I will post results of the next clutch when I find it. From here on out I will intro the Black Dragon Male to the Black Females to make some "pure" ones and see how that works out. Thanks.
Photos:
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