Question: Keep axolotl from breeding?

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brtnykys

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Hey guys, first week on this site and loving it ...as well as my new and adorable pets!
so here is my question...the axys I have been given are adults of breeding age. Other than that I do not know what their actual age is or if they are related. There is one male and one female. They are kept in the same 20 gal tank so that they don't get bored or lonely (and because it is convenient and that's how they were given to me) so I do not wish to separate them. I would love nothing more than to find fertilized axy eggs in may tank..scoop em out and rear a dozen or two adorable axys to share with the world! BUT, the reality is that I don't know the the genotypes of my axys, whether or not they are siblings or parent/offspring, how to raise baby axys or how i would find homes for them...but the idea that I would have to dispose of potentially fertilized eggs makes me cringe with sadness...so I guess my question is...are there any ways to keep axys from breeding without seperating them? or is it something I am just going to have to deal with? how often will adult axies leave a clutch of fertilized eggs in my tank? What are the risks of rearing and owning axies that are imbred?....and also is there anyway to tell their genotypes without knowing what their parents looked like?


sorry about all the questions...I just would really like to know.
also......female is black with speckles (wildtype?) and male is just black (melanoid)
 
firstly welcome to the forum.
Im not very good with genetics so im going to leave that bit alone for someone else to answer. The most effect was to stop your axies from breading to to keep them seperate. You could have a boy tank and a girl tank..........If you leave the eggs in the tank your axies will eat them. I hope this is helpful.
 
thanks, I don't know if I have the space or funds for two tanks...so I guess I'll just have to deal with them eating their eggs..or...having to get rid of them myself .:C
 
Hi! This is going to sound bad but axolotls are the epitome of inbred anyway. In fact most domestic animals are. If they are from a run of the mill fish supplier who provide to pet shops, expect them to be brother sister inbreeds for the past 10 generations. So if they do breed... its not going to be hat much different. I got my breeding pair from a pet store together and they had entirely healthy babies. This is disregarding all ethics but the chance of deformities from inbreeding is actually quite low. Its just how you feel about it, morally.

There isn't anything you can do to stop them breeding except separating them unfortunately. Personally i wouldn't worry about it, but it is up to you. You could try putting in some mesh as a divider in the middle of the tank, they will sort of stay together then.

If you did choose to leave them together, I think disposing of the eggs is a much less harmful thing to do than to try to keep all of the babies, they can have several hundred. That is VERY demanding, and will probably be more of a nuisance in the long run. Again it’s ethical, but when they are first laid they are not alive. You have a few weeks before they start forming a baby axolotl with eyes and a heartbeat... think of it like an abortion. It's not actually alive yet, but it has the potential. If you do not have the means or want to take care of several hundred, its probably best for their lives and yours if you dispose of them before they begin (this is controversial... sorry).

I have done it many times before, its something that comes with razing axolots in captivity… in the wild mother nature takes care of all the eggs, where most of them unfortunately die (theoretically why they have so many). Raising them is very rewarding though, if you do wish to keep some/all of the eggs if you let them breed.

you will definitely find homes for a few eggs on the forum or through friends, but even then it will probably not be all of them :(

axolotls can breed several times a year, but most often in winter. There will be A LOT of eggs.

I hope this helps you make a decision. Your axies will not know either way, if they are related, or where their eggs have gone if you remove them.
 
Thanks a lot, your answer is helpful. Somewhere down the line I want to keep like 4 o5 5 eggs and hatch them...it might tell me more about their genotypes but I am not gonna do it til I know i can devote my time to them and find them homes. I want to be the best axy owner I can, even if it means culling the eggs so no one gets neglected.
 
I'll chip in with something else - producing eggs takes a LOT out of any animal, so it's not recommended to let females just continually breed. Just another thing for you to think about! If there are any other axie owners within a reasonable distance, see if you can do a swap - 1 of yours for 1 of theirs. Not only does that mix up the genepool very slightly if you decide to get another + breed in the future, but it will also remove the worry for you ;)
 
That's a good point, I really should try to get in contact with someone else who owns some, but I am not sure how to.....also are you saying that keeping my male and female together will cause over-breeding and be harmful to my female!? I certainly hope not!
 
It will only be harmful if she breeds to often. Its recommended to separate the female for 3 months after laying so her body has time to recover and relax.

Breeding is a good way to discover genotypes, but in your case not if you wanted a variety of babies... You said both of your axies were melanoid or wild type (the black with spots is probably melanoid too) melanoid is resessive, being m/m, and if both of your axies are melanoid, there is no chance of getting babies of any other colour. If the other axie IS wild... they will be all wild or possibly 1/2 wild melanoid if the wild is carrying the melanoid gene.
 
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She has to be wildtype right? because of the white ring around her eye! so that means she is W/m and he must be m/m?....so confusing lol....I think I will but a tank divider to separate them for duration after she has layed eggs or during the months when they tend to breed(winter right?)...If eggs appear I suppose I will have to get my boyfriend to deal with them so I don't have to feel bad (I am just like that :C) ..........but eventually! eventually I will have baby axys and kind people to give them to...
 
I am also interested in this, I would be purchasing a juvenile, and I have no way of sexing them until they grow up. I'd be keeping the pair separating until adulthood. But I was wondering, is it possible to just lift the plants up, remove the eggs and remove them from the rocks and anywhere they might be?
Thank you, I can start a new thread if needed
 
if the time comes and you do have unwanted egg's there are a lot of people that would be willing to take them and raise them you can post add's on different sites and on here as well, so before culling them you have the chance to try find them homes, they can be posted in the post as well so that means they can go further than just your local area, some people even sell the egg's too.. and another thing is the eggs are very nutritious to axolotls as well, so if u do have to cull them, its easiest to leave them to be eaten, but with that said, if they start to develop then you may want to take them out if uneaten by the development starting stage like yellow pebble talked about its like abortion before they are alive, as id imagine after it would be much harder to do.

one more thing, if you do decided to try and find other to take them, the best thing would be to of course remove the egg's and keep them at lower temps, about 16-18 to delay their development to give you more time to find homes for them, as egg's develop slower in colder water temps :)
good luck and hope everything works out for you
 
What might people do with the eggs? I mean, do people just raise them ALL? I will probably try to get two of the same gender xD
 
If you wanted to you could just leave the eggs in there and the parents can have a dinner together haha (I know...sounds horrible) I wonder why people sometimes feel like they MUST raise the eggs.

The only way you can stop them from breeding is separating them.
 
i just would feel REALLY bad if they kinda developed and started swimming around and got munched. are the eggs REALLY big? Ive seen pictures but nothing to scale.
 
Hi!

The egg are quite small but the jelly around them makes it hard to tell. I think you have to think of the eggs like chicken eggs you get from the supermarket, undeveloped with out a heart beat. You have to weigh up if you would rather discard of eggs or watch your babies slowly drop off one by one because of stretched resources. I have a pond out the back which I put them in, none of them hatched and I think something ate them but it least it was up to nature! I also find that my axies are less frisky if I keep the water temp low feed them every other day and try to keep everything at a constant level basically the opposite to what you would do to encourage breeding of course this is not a fail safe and it would be great if you would separate her just after she has laid even if its in a storage tub! As long as it has something for her to grip on the bottom she wont know the difference ;p
 
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