Surprise Babies

[Dracoluna]

I've been pairing off and on for a few years but after 3 of my girls slugged out nearly requiring surgery on 2 (long story about why I think they had issues), I decided to take a break from breeding. A friend of mine gave me a lesser pos het clown/pied and asked me to make a clown baby. I had 2 young het clown girls and 2 years ago, I started pairing them with the lesser boy and a het clown boy I had picked up. Saw locks on both girls but they were just 3 years old so I didn't think anything about it when they didn't ovulate or lay. Fast forward, didn't breed this past season but when I went to clean tubs, on September 30, Cara, one of the het clown girls, was curled around 5 eggs. 3 were viable and 2 were slugs. Never saw her ovulate and she hadn't been paired for a little over 2 years by that point. Since I didn't have my incubator going, I opted to let her maternally incubate. Yesterday, we had a pip and since I didn't see movement in the other 2 eggs, I opted to cut them. 1 was a very undersized dead clown baby. 1 was a large and very lazy normal. And the one who pipped was a big clown. Today the two survivors are out and while the normal still has some yolk to absorb, it's doing fantastic. I'm beyond thrilled that the first bp baby born here was a gorgeous little clown girl though.