I don't have any firm answers for you, but......

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Posted by kerry on January 29, 2002 at 23:02:17:

In Reply to: ReThanks>.More basic ???'s posted by dvl on January 29, 2002 at 20:29:57:

......I believe that a male wouldn't hesitate to eat the eggs if he came across them. On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense for a wild female to eat her own eggs. If they did so regularly, there likely wouldn't be any Gila Monsters. Perhaps the laying female remembers and goes back to them in the case of life threatening hunger later in the season. Perhaps if the eggs are discovered by a different female they are immediately consumed. These are some of the things we don't know yet. Perhaps YOU could be the one to shed a little light on the subject. I would guess that if you made sure that your enclosure female(s) were well fed that the eggs would be spared, unless you over crowded them. One female per pen would be optimum. As for keeping adults and hatchlings together, forget about it. Introduce a hatchling to a large adult and watch what happens. If the hatchling is good and warmed up it will usually go into a full-blown panic and frantically try climbing the walls in an attempt to escape... call it the instinct to survive. I don't think I would want to verify this hypothesis, if you get my drift.

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: ......I believe that a male wouldn't hesitate to eat the eggs if he came across them. On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense for a wild female to eat her own eggs. If they did so regularly, there likely wouldn't be any Gila Monsters. Perhaps the laying female remembers and goes back to them in the case of life threatening hunger later in the season. Perhaps if the eggs are discovered by a different female they are immediately consumed. These are some of the things we don't know yet. Perhaps YOU could be the one to shed a little light on the subject. I would guess that if you made sure that your enclosure female(s) were well fed that the eggs would be spared, unless you over crowded them. One female per pen would be optimum. As for keeping adults and hatchlings together, forget about it. Introduce a hatchling to a large adult and watch what happens. If the hatchling is good and warmed up it will usually go into a full-blown panic and frantically try climbing the walls in an attempt to escape... call it the instinct to survive. I don't think I would want to verify this hypothesis, if you get my drift.

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