Whats the chances of getting eggs ?

[malc-c]

Hi all, first post so be gentile

I first bread royals three years ago, which was a pairing of my lesser platinum male with a normal female. They both followed normal royal traits of fasting etc and the end result was 7 eggs, of which 6 were lost due to a technical issue with my home made incubator. This season I've paired my lesser platinum male with a lesser pastel female, but even though I've seen plenty of locks isn't showing the same signs or patterns that my normal female exhibited.

Now, my female lesser pastel has never exhibited "normal" royal behaviour. I've had her for just under three years and in that time she has never refused a meal, yes never refused any food at the fortnightly feeds.It's this that is somewhat causing me some concern with regards to the breeding.

To give some comparison here are the details of my first breeding I used as a basis for this years pairings.

I observed 9 locks in January and February 2015, the female first refused food 18/3/15, as did the male. I kept introducing them through March and April with the last lock observed 29/4/15. She was seen to ovulate 4/7/15 - 172 days after the first lock was observed, and laid eggs 46 days later. She resumed eating 2/9/15 some 168 days without food.

Now by comparison here's this years breeding notes.

I began introductions in September 2016, but despite lots of scenting and tail wagging etc the first lock was observed 8/1/18. I continued to introduce the pair through January and February and recorded 7 locks all of which lasted 24 hours or more. Further introductions in March, April and May resulted in no interest from the female, or the male at the last introduction in Mid-May. So using the notes from the first breeding I should be expecting this female to ovulate around the beginning of July as she's around 131 days since the first lock. The thing is she is still eating and has a very healthy appetite, and I've been told that this isn't a good sign as you can't fit food and eggs in the same body cavity ! The thing is her weight has increased quite dramatically in the last three months. She was weighed 12/8/17 coming in at 1328g. I weighed her again 22/2/18 and she tipped the scales at 1382g, 54g in six months. Her last weighing was 26/5/18 when she was 1590g, that's an increase of 208g in three months. I weigh all my snakes empty, and throughout this time she hasn't been fed anything different, just a 90g weaner rat every 2 weeks.

I've never seen any bowl wrapping with either of my females, and my lesser pastle loves the heat, spending a fair bit of time at the warm end, but recently has been seen spending a fair bit of time at the cool (25C) end for longer periods of time.

Have any of you guys had female continue to eat whilst going through the breeding cycle and still lay eggs?

Would welcome your comments.

Thanks

Malc