Back towards the end of April/start of May 2018, we noted that one of our female Chinese Alligators was potentially breeding with a resident male Chinese Alligator of ours. You can read more about that back in our news section.
After several weeks of being in an enclosure together, we removed the male from the female's enclosure to allow another female to breed with him. (We really do hope something comes of all this breeding!)
We have now noticed that the first female alligator we tried to breed has put on weight over the weeks since the potential breeding as well as her lower belly seeming to get bigger - could she be gravid (pregnant in simple terms)?
The female pictured on this page (image was taken on 1st July 2018) now appears to be showing nesting signs. Firstly, she tends to bite at the grass and foliage surrounding the water in her enclosure. You can kind of see this by the image provided, or take a look at our gallery section where you'll see footage of her appearing to begin nesting.
At this time we're not conviced she is gravid but due to the behaviour mentioned above, as well as the weight gain at the mid section of her body, we're really hopefully that we may get eggs from her in the near future.
If egg laying occurs then we will keep you posted right here, so stay tuned!