How many eggs/larvae to keep? (C. pyrrhogaster)

[heather]

So my wish of having a breeding colony of newts has been fulfilled and they have been pretty prolific. I would like to "share the wealth" to those interested, but I was wondering how many eggs/larva should I keep if I am hoping to raise just a few myself? In other words whats the survival rate of these little eggs? If I keep a dozen or so eggs, are chances good that I will end up with 3-4 little newtlets several months down the road? Thanks for any comments,
Heather

 

[joan]

If you keep about a dozen, you can figure that you'll have around 8 or 9 that survive. Then you have to figure in morphing, in which a few may die.

 

[heather]

Ok sounds good. Thanks Joan

 

[TJ]

Hi Heather. It's great that you're willing to share like that. Still, keep in mind that C. pyrrhogaster morphs are notoriously difficult to raise so you might want to hang onto as many larvae as you think you can adequately care for, anticipating at least some losses.

Also, as part of housekeeping duties, I'll likely be moving this thread to the General Discussion section as the topic is general in nature, even though the species happens to be a Cynops. Or if you prefer, I could combine it with one of your previous threads (on your C. pyrrhogaster mating and then laying eggs). It's OK sometimes to split threads about a single topic up, but this is usually when they're long or heavy with pictures.

Also folks, when starting new threads, please mention in the title what <u>species</u> the thread is about

I've long been editing people's thread titles to show this...thanks!

(Message edited by TJ on December 18, 2006)