Possible diapause?

[diamondbp]

Hey guys,

In April my female sulcata laid her first clutch of 8 eggs, 3 of which were fertile, the other five went bad after about 3-4 weeks. They remained in the house at about 78degrees for about 4 weeks and then were moved onto my patio under a lamp to stay around 85 degrees or so. I candled them at two months and THOUGHT they were also infertile since I did not see any embryo or vains. Surprisingly 100 days into the incubation I recandled them and behold they were fertile and of course have hatched and are healthy babies.

My issue is that she laid another clutch of 16(one broken/smashed) so 15 eggs in early September. One egg had a small crack indention but the rest were normal. Well now that its a 2.5 months later I've candled them a few times and only the egg with the small indention has obvious embryo development and the others dont show any embryo or vains. I've read some limited sources on diapause so about 5 weeks ago I lowered the temperature for the eggs to 70-72(planning to do it for 30-40days). I haven't candled them since but I plan to turn the temperature back up to the mid 80s-low90s very soon, hopefully to trigger development.

Im slightly worried because although they all have the same weight and no bad smell, the developing egg is obviously WHITER than all the others. Please could you help me to decifer what is going on and if I'm doing anything wrong?

The wierd part is that this happened last time and they hatched out fine at 150-160 days. Is it possible that this is just a normal egg cycle for this female? and if so why would the indented egg be developing way faster than the others?

INPUT PLEASE!!!! thanks

 

[Yvonne G]

I know that some of the SA leopard eggs will accept a diapause, but I've never heard of it for sulcata eggs. The ones I incubated all hatched out at about 3 months at 86F degrees.

 

[diamondbp]

Here are some pictures. Only the only with the small dent shows veins and an embryo, whereas all the others show nothing. Is it really possible for eggs to be over 75 days old and not be fertile yet not rot or become severely discolored??
This is really blowing my mind. Especially considering the last batch did the same thing and started to develop once two months old. Nature is crazy and confusing!

 

[murdocjunior]

Wow ive never heard of sulcatas diapause as well but got me thinking about the ones i thought were not fertile :/

 

[Katherine]

Can you clarify 'went bad' for us? I would not be surprised a bit to learn that sulcata eggs *could* handle a diapause but I have a backyard full of proof that it is not necessary to provide them one. 85-95 days at 90 degrees gives me hatchlings every time. If an embryo has begun to develop already and you chill the eggs, you could lose the embryo; so I would probably just avoid this all together if you are invested in the outcome of the eggs.

 

[diamondbp]

When the first batch had eggs that "went bad", what happened was they began to smell, developed a returning fungus(I would wipe them off) and then became discolored, almost like a tricolored of yellow-pink-off white. Which is strange because I'm using the same methods as before (slightly most vermiculite) and haven't had any fungus at all. I'm going to crank up the temperature to high 80's and see what happens.

I haven't lowered the eggs to low that it would affect the developing egg, the embryo has doubled in size since its last candling, even with those temperatures.

I guess my man question for everyone really boils down to this, How long can a non-fertile egg stay fertile looking, without rotting,smelling, or discoloring??? I can understand a few weeks possibly, but not nearly 3 months like the ones I have

ps. the pictures of the candling were taken last night, and the eggs were laid sept 29th

 

[kbaker]

To answer your question... Many months. Some times they rot and some times they don't. It amazes me how beautiful and yummy the eggs look after so long. Never eaten one, but they look like they would cook up just fine!

 

[diamondbp]

I cranked the temp up to 90degrees and they eggs have become noticeably whiter after a few days. I will give an update in a week or two when I candle them to see if development has started or that they were in fact infertile. Thanks again for the input guys