After many exciting and nerve-racking weeks of our Chinese Alligator breeding season, as previously stated, we managed to get two clutches of eggs from seperate breeding pairs of Sinensis at our Chinese Alligator Conservation Facilites.
The first clutch of eggs were from Ayla and Dragon, but unfortunately the eggs never banded and although they are still inside the incubator, we believe at this time that that clutch of eggs are infertile.
Later on, we will break open Ayla's eggs to see if there were any embryos in any of the eggs, which would show Dragon and Ayla to have been fertile.
Our second clutch of Chinese Alligator eggs was laid by Sky, another of our resident females. She was bred with Shaun Jnr - a male Chinese Alligator that we loaned from Shaun Foggett, curator at Crocodiles of the World who we are collaborating with on our Chinese Alligator breeding programs.
This clutch of eggs were incubated for 63 days. On day 62, when viewing the clutch, we could clearly hear one of the baby alligators calling from within the egg.
By 1800hrs the next day, we were really pleased that we had achieved our goal of breeding and successfully hatching the UK's first baby Chinese Alligator.
If you keep an eye on our website over the coming weeks, we will be uploading footage of the baby Chinese Alligator hatching and developing over the coming months and years.
You can see more photos of the baby Chinese Alligator over in our image gallery.
eek so exciting!!!