Quote Originally Posted by gregmonsta View Post
Well, the little one, despite having been an avid feeder, was unfortunately found dead two days ago .

My overall evaluation is as follows:


  • The litter was premature. She wasn't expected to drop anything until now. Several of the slugs contained 'mini-snakes' and 'Snakus Christ' was very much on the small side too.
  • The litter seemed to have two distinct stages of development. The earlier stillborn passed, were normal sized and well developed. Later stillborn were as described above.
  • The above points could indicate: 1) Some fully formed babies, though dead, were retained from last year and spoiled the litter. or 2) She had started to produce a new litter prior to he male being introduced (she was acting 'horny' at the time) and fertilisation somehow occurred in two 'stages'.


Other things are probably possible. I'll be leaving her out of breeding until 2014 to see if anything else crops up. Her sister is attempting a litter using retained sperm, but she has been a point of confusion as I was expecting to see something from her around December. And no .... I definitely didn't get them mixed up ... it's all a bit backwards with these 2.
"1) Some fully formed babies, though dead, were retained from last year and spoiled the litter"

I don't think so. Retaining dead babies would have been fatal in short order due to septicemia. I also don't think that fertilization was done in "two stages". I think the different stages is due to development problems, rather than different timing.