Breeding my female lavender for the first time...

I put my '99 female lav (which I got last fall) in with my proven male normal quad het for hypo motley anery and amel. I figured I would test my lav for hypo, motley, and amel.

So, she starts twitching bigtime (I was even able to get her all riled up before I put the male in with her) and she then started slithering up over the male, and was trying to push his head down with hers...

So to check my suspicion, I put the male back and put my female snow in with her. Sure enough, within a few seconds the "female" lav got a whiff of the snow, lifted up her tail, and everted "her" hemipenes.

When I got this lav, they were probed at the herp shop (while we waited at the register) and marked as a male and female. Kat and I bought them as a 1.1 pair, and we don't have definite proof yet but it seems like her "male" is also a male.

This is a reputable place, too, and I could swear they told us (in response to "do you know if they're het or poss het for anything?") that these two had bred in '02 and hatched out all lavenders...

I know there's a moral to the story somewhere. hehe.

Oh yeah, always double check.

Oh that's horrible...

...to start to breed her...and find out she is really a "he." Do you have any other lavender females? If not, then it is really horribe because now you are going to have to raise another one for a couple of years or so before you can breed lavenders (unless you can find an adult one). But then, that would be quite costly, huh?

Heh... you know, Chuck... I seem to recall when we were in the shop buying those lavs that I noticed on the sign for the lavs that it had two male symbols... but the salesperson insisted those were old and that the two in there were a 'pair'. I bet what happened was he took the lavenders back into the shop, asked someone to sex the pair... the first one probed male, so the person, being told it was a pair, didn't sex the other one and assumed it was the 'female'.

Ah well... atleast it was a darn good price. So much for the intended breeding loan. I suppose it's a -really- good thing I bought Scylle (normal dh hypo lav) from Rich, then... otherwise I'd not be getting any lavender hatchlings until next year, when my '01 female will be ready.

I think I really need to probe the ghost trio I bought from them... I probed one of the ghosts as female earlier, when I put her up for sale, but I better make sure the 'female' I'm keeping really is a female too. ...Otherwise I'll be in trouble when I try to breed them.

-Kat

Man, I wish I had a nickle for ever time I have heard a story like this. I get a lot of people contacting me every Spring all in a panic because something like this happened and now they are desperate for a mate for their animals.

(Hey, I think I see a market for a female Lavender if I want to put one on the surplus list. )

And this is not the time to be desperately searching for a mate for your animals. What are you going to do about the quarantine period? Ignore it? Not a good idea. This sort of thing has deep sixed many a person's collection.

I don't think it needs to be said, but I'll say it anyway: ALWAYS double check the sexes, no matter whom you get them from. And do it IMMEDIATELY upon receipt of the animals. That is the time to correct any mistakes.

Sorry to hear about this, guys.....

I still might put one up there, just to tease you....

Go ahead, Rich! Tempt me . . .I mean, THEM!

That would be evil.

-Kat

Heh heh!

Thanks Rich. One of the first things I thought of, when I suspected she was a he, was reading one of your Murphy's Laws of Breeding type essays, in which you do point that out.

My main interest in lavenders is not to produce more lavs, but hypo lavs, and especially motley and bloodred lavs. Fortunately, I have a test male and test female for Hypo/Motley/Amel/Anery, so I can at least hope to find out from the snow whether this lav is carrying any hypo, motley, or amel genes.

And I still have my big Bloodred female that consistently lays 20 eggs a year and is triple het for some cool stuff. I just need to clone her because I already have about 5 males I want to pair up with her. hehe.

If you can come up with a bloodred female that's also triple het for 3 other cool genes and lays tons of fertile eggs, that would probably be more torturous than just putting up a lav female.

Hey Serp..

Out of curiousity, is Mary ovulating or gravid while you took those pics in your photo gallery?
And BTW, sorry to hear about your experience and while it sucks to be missing a female, having a spare male around isn't such a bad deal. Now you have a stand-in if one male is in shed or picky. I have one male that is very choosy and likes who he likes and everyone else is out. I have almost considered using Hybridization tactics to get him to breed to females that I want him to!

Heh, just gotta deal with reality...

Out of curiousity, is Mary ovulating or gravid while you took those pics in your photo gallery?

Click to expand...

Nope. She tends to show a lot of skin, especially after a meal, and I think it shows up easier because of the contrast between the skin and scale colors. My CalKing is the same way.

And BTW, sorry to hear about your experience and while it sucks to be missing a female, having a spare male around isn't such a bad deal.

Click to expand...

LOL actually it is. Problem is, I only have 4 adult females, all of which are the only 4 females I bred in 2001 and 2002, so nothing new this year as far as females.

In total, at the moment I have 7 males of breedable or potentially breedable size that will be sitting around doing absolutely nothing this year. Heh. (10.4 is NOT a cool ratio to have, especially when you're doing "all eggs in one basket" type of projects! hehe)

The good news is that I still have a good match for the lav. It's kinda funny because I was planning on using a normal quad het for anery amel motley and hypo to test "her" and now I'm using a snow het motley and hypo instead... same genes, better test. But... I'm giving up the chance to hatch some hypo motleys in order to do so.

Or Coral Snow Mots would be interesting too...
Well hopefully that is your bad luck for the season and you have a great year! Have fun.