Did you not have your axolotls seperated and woke up to 100s of eggs in your tank? If so, you are not the first. The below article, not written by us, will help walk you through how to figure out what to do. Raising axolotls is not cheep or easy so we advise taking all the the information below into consideration.
Axolotl Breeding (Accidental Eggs)
✨Credit to: Kedron Sararas✨
Ok so first things first, remove the male. He now needs a bachelor pad. If you leave them together he will breed her far more often than her body can withstand and she will become sickly. You can tub him for now until you figure out your tank situation.
Next, once the female is done laying, remove all the eggs to their own bin as well. If you leave them in there the adult will eat them. You can use a turkey baster or your hands to move them.
Now that everyone is safe, evaluate. Did you get the male and female from the same source? Around the same time? If the answer is yes then they are likely related. If this is the case they NEED to be culled now.
Is the happy couple, particularly the female, under 18 months?
If so laying is particularly hard on her and you are likely at risk for a low hatch rate and a higher than normal rate of unhealthy babies.
If this is her first clutch then that further negatively affects success rates in the clutch.
Dealing with both of these factors is emotionally draining and culling what is essentially a group of cells right now is much different than culling a fully formed and hatched baby in a few weeks.
Raising eggs means a 3 month minimum twice a day minimum commitment EVERY day for water changes, feedings and tending to the live food they require for the first couple of months. No days off, no weekend getaways, no sick days.
If you keep all the eggs you need to rehome all the babies. Are you going to be able to find homes for ALL of them? Are you prepared to house all of them if they don't sell. You may luck out and sell them all at 3 months but if you don't you may need to house them for 6 to 9 months or even longer.
Purchasing tubs, equipment and live food is costly. Do you have the budget available to support them until they sell?
Once you have considered these points you have 3 options (or a combination of them)
If you don't feel you can fully commit there is NOTHING wrong with responsibly culling them. Simply place in a Ziploc bag and place in your freezer before discarding. They are no more than a collection of cells at the moment and have no sense of pain or awareness.
You can sell the eggs. Eggs are simple to ship. Wait til the eggs bean (start to change shape). Be very upfront with customers regarding the fact that it's a first clutch. 25-50 cents per egg is about average. If you know the hets (what the parents' parents are) you could go for the higher end, if not and because this was an oops clutch the lower end. The agreement usually includes the buyer paying for shipping.
You can choose to raise some or all. I would recommend trying 25-50 for your first go at eggs. It is enough to give you an idea of how labor intensive a full clutch is without being totally overwhelming. You can cull or sell the rest.
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