Female Follicular Growth Graphs

[CapeFearConstrictors]

I posted this as a blog post on my website, but that doesn't get a whole lot of traffic and I think this post in particular might be informative and interesting. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Fair warning, this is going to be a pretty nerdy post. For those of you who don't know, last fall I wrote my own tracking software for my snakes. My software keeps track of all my snakes' feedings, food refusals, sheds, pairings, locks, ovulations and clutch information.

Anyway, I've been constantly adding small features here and there to my software when necessary, such as adding the ability to synchronize my incubator, available and collection pages on the website. Recently, I've added a feature I've wanted to add all along, but I'm at the point in my breeding season where I think the information it will provide might be of some use.

I've added the ability to create graphs for each of my snakes. These graphs show all the feedings, the weight gain/loss, the locks, follicular growth, ovulations and egg laying. Having all this information available in a single place that's easy to analyze is very nice. Here's a sample. Please note that I ultrasound every 4 weeks and weigh each snake close to the beginning of each month.



The image above is the graph for the female who laid 2013 Clutch #1. Unfortunately, I did not track any follicular growth in October due to her being in shed. I was pretty surprised in November when I did ultrasound her and she was already at ~20mm. You can see the follicle growth was pretty quick. She went from 19mm to ovulation at probably 45mm in just over two months. I only managed to get two locks in during this period, but it was enough.



This is the graph for clutch #2. This girl had a very dramatic growth in follicles. In under two months she went from ~7mm follicles to ovulating at ~43mm. Notice the weight gain after laying eggs. She's already at her pre-lay weight. I've been giving my females fresh tubs and a wipe down after laying, but I've only had a few girls start eating again immediately. Usually it takes at least one week, and some of the girls don't eat again until after their post-lay shed.



Here's the female that laid clutch #3. I'm going to ignore the drop in follicle size in November. That's likely a mistake I made with the ultrasound. The follicular growth here is much slower. I find it interesting that the female went off feed over a month before her follicles started really growing. She also started losing a little bit of weight. Nothing major, but it's interesting to note. This was the female that had to have the last retained egg surgically removed. I didn't offer food until 4 weeks after she laid due to that. That's why she didn't resume eating sooner. Don't worry, she's doing fine. She's eating again and will be going to the vet next week to get her stitches removed.



This female went off feed way before her follicles really started growing. Roughly 8 months without eating for this girl! I was only able to get two locks out of this girl, but evidently, it was enough. Notice the stagnation in follicle growth around the 15mm mark followed by rapid growth during the next four weeks. I wasn't certain about ovulation, which is why you see a follicle record after ovulation. It looks like this girl ovulated at roughly 40mm. It was nice to see her back on food after going so long without eating.



This one looks pretty par for the course. Pretty slow growth until the trigger point where we begin to see fast development.



This girl grew slow but steadily for a few months, then stagnated for a few weeks before taking off. I find it interesting that she ate while going through a period of very rapid follicle growth.



This girl started out with 15mm follicles, which is a pretty good size and usually indicates that the female will go on to lay, but she frustrated me. No follicle growth to speak about for four months, then she went on to ovulate two months later. Notice she went off food two months before her follicles really took off.



This girl had what looks like nice smooth follicular growth. Starting out slowly and gradually building up speed until the point of ovulation. Note that she did not eat at all during the breeding season and only had two locks early on and they were at around 10mm.



Now this girl has not laid yet. As you can see, she had very slow follicular growth. This girl was paired up several times prior to her first lock in early March, but no locks were witnessed. Judging by the increase in follicular growth between April and May, I expect to see some significant growth when I ultrasound mid-June. If the other females that have gone onto ovulate are any indication, she should be close to, if not larger than, 40mm when I ultrasound. I'll be sure to make a followup post when I do so we can all see if I'm right.



This girl also has not laid yet. I'm not quite sure what to make of her chart. There are periods of growth followed by periods of stagnation. She grew from 5mm to 12mm in four weeks, then didn't grow at all in four weeks only to grow to 20mm and then not grow again for four weeks. I've been palpating my females between ultrasound sessions, and I can no longer feel firm follicles in this girl. So either she had a period of incredible growth these past three weeks, or she's started reabsorbing her follicles. She was just locked up earlier today, so I'm hoping it's the former.

I have more charts, but I think this is probably information overload as it is. I think the information is fascinating, and will become even more so as I get more data points from more females. It's also interesting to see the correlation of feedings to weight gain, particularly in girls that hit that 600g or 1000g wall.

My breeding season isn't finished yet. I'm hoping to have a dozen or so more clutches this season. These few charts aren't enough to make any concrete conclusions on follicular growth, but it's pretty interesting that most females seem to start out with their follicles growing slowly only to see them experience very rapid growth over the period of about two months. This probably isn't anything new to most of you who have been breeding for any significant length of time, but I hope these charts prove useful to some of you.

Feel free to let me know what you think, and if you have any ideas of changes or additions I can make to the graphs to make them more useful, please let me know.