Irian Jaya breeding thread

[hurricanejen]

Hey all!

Today I had a confirmed female (gave birth early last year) come in to the breeding center; been waiting on this girl ever since she dropped the babies, she's been essentially in quarantine until she was fat and sassy enough to come over here. Just for giggles, I stuck her in with my pretty reddish male to see how he took it - he's been dropping sperm plugs left and right.

It was love at first sight for him! I went to check on them again after about half an hour, and caught the very tail end of lock up. Curious if anyone else is having locks, or even trying to pair their Irian Jayas right now, and/or what they do with theirs.

I've got our group the same as all the Indonesian-y locales; basking spots hitting the 100 degree (F) mark during the day, ambients in the high 70s/low 80s, dropping down to 68/69 at night. The Irian Jayas are almost all still eating, there's one male that seems to be trying to brumate and hasn't been feeding. He hasn't lost any weight though, so I'm just watching him.

I mist all of them once a week right now, but only lightly, and make sure they're dry before I mist them again the next week. Humidity is about 40 to 60%, with the once a week spike into the 80%+ range. They've been dry since November; prior to that, they were getting a heavy mist at least every other day, and the cages felt nice and muggy pretty constantly. There's no copulation or even interest from any of the other Irian Jayas, just that one pair when first introduced. Now that I know it's a possibility, I'll try rotating the two males through the girls more often.

LMK. Thanks for any input from any of you with Irian Jayas; I'm really curious about how all these locales end up cycling (if I successfully get them all cycling!).

-Jen

[Jeff]

I have never bred IJ's myself, but every person I know that has, has treated them just like northerns. They seem to breed very well when kept that way, and given a formal cooling for 6-8 weeks.

It is likely however, that both northerns and I.J.'s can breed with no cooling at all. A slight manipulation of the photo-period may be enough to trigger the breeding response at the same time in all the skinks to be bred.

[mark_w]

I have bred IJs a few times. I used to keep them as described by Jeff with a winter cooling where I reduced daylength to around 6 hours and stopped feeding for around 8 weeks. At the same time the ambient daytime and nighttime temps would be reduced a few degrees. I used to keep mine in pairs so I just increased daylength back to 13hours in a couple of steps over the course of a week and also brought the ambient temps up a few degrees. Also, I would spray a few times with tepid water and start feeding generously. Some years they bred, some years they didn't. Out of 3 or 4 proven breeding pairs, I would get 1 or maybe 2 litters per year. Each female would breed for 1 or 2 seasons, then have 1 or 2 seasons off. Also, even my best breeders only produced 4 or 5 litters in total over the 10 or 12 years. So, it did work but was never as reliable or productive when compared to Jeff's northern blue tongue farm. Also, I always got between 1 and 3 stillborns or malformed babies. The picture below was about as good as it got, with 7 healthy babies. Often it was 4 or 5.



Mark.