# Pumilio...how many eggs is too many eggs?



## dravenxavier (Mar 12, 2008)

Well, I was pretty excited yesterday when I saw a clutch of 6 eggs on a brom leaf yesterday. I'd only gotten my pumilio a little over 2 weeks ago, and I just have them in a very minimalistic enclosure with 1 brom, sphagnum moss for bedding, a very small bowl of water, and a piece of cork bark. I was planning on keeping them like this for a month or two, to make sure all was well before throwing them into a larger planted tank where observation would be more difficult.

So, I look in today to check on the pumilio and their eggs, and I see that I actually missed another clutch altogether, which is even farther along in development, with small tadpoles wiggling about on occassion. There are at least 5 tadpoles that I can see, and maybe more I can't. And they can't be much older that the other clutch of eggs. So how many is the female actually capable of caring for? 11+ eggs seems a bit much, but I figured I should get everyone's opinion.


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## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

My guess is that seven is as close to the maximum as you will get. Female _Oophaga pumilio_ produce, on average, one egg per day (as I recall). This egg can go to feeding or breeding. She feeds the tads an egg a week, so my guess is seven.
All these estimates have large error margins, however, so realistically four to 11 maybe?
I hope this helps,
Ben


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## UmbraSprite (Mar 2, 2007)

Well the key is how many TADS she can care for...many of those eggs tend not to make it. I have a shepherd island which had four tads developing....I only know where one of the tads is....so just have to see. They will stop laying once they have tads to feed. (or so I hear)


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I`ve had them produce up to 21 in a week and 10 come out in a clutch. They usually loose tads in the wild. they seem to produce more tads than they can usually care for.


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## Kase (Feb 15, 2004)

frogfarm said:


> I`ve had them produce up to 21 in a week and 10 come out in a clutch. They usually loose tads in the wild. they seem to produce more tads than they can usually care for.


Any idea why they do this? That doesn't seem very efficient to me. The amount of resources and energy spent on courting and especially laying eggs seems substantial when that many eggs are 'wasted'. Maybe this only occurs when food is readily available in an ecosystem?


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## Rich Frye (Nov 25, 2007)

Kase said:


> frogfarm said:
> 
> 
> > I`ve had them produce up to 21 in a week and 10 come out in a clutch. They usually loose tads in the wild. they seem to produce more tads than they can usually care for.
> ...


It's not that the eggs or tads are wasted. In the wild predation and other external events will cull many eggs and tads. This is not such an issue in captivity. 
It does not happen often, but when I think a female has produced too many eggs than possible for her to care for I take the eggs, hatch them out on my own and place the tads in a pum viv with less egg laying. I have done this last with my Robalo female who produced three clutches in nine days.

Rich


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## Kase (Feb 15, 2004)

That makes sense. Very cool, thanks for the input Rich.


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