Posted by Troy Hibbitts on July 09, 1997 at 18:31:01:
Of the ten alterna that I have had appear gravid, five
have produced infertile eggs, while of the remaining
five, one has produced a good clutch and the others appear
to be well on their way to doing so (each remaining female
is much heavier and has much more obvious eggs in her than
the ones that threw slugs). Anyway, the common thread here
is that the females that threw slugs were all bred by 3 (and
in one case, 4) year old, captive bred males, while the
remaining females were bred by wild-caught males (in all
but one case, older, mature adults, with the exception being
a wc97 24"male). While I don't have a scope to check
sperm counts, it seems that the older, wild males in my
collection are producing good sperm, while the young cb
ones are not. I wish I could compare old wc vs old cb
snakes, but none of my cb are older than 4.5 yrs.
Questions:
(1) how many of you have noticed similar phenomenon?
(2) is there anything to be done regarding sperm production,
besides allowing the young males to mature?
Troy