Do you guys see a correlation in poor feeding females that produce their first clutch, then become excellent feeders after that first clutch?... I have noticed it on 5 females from last season.... sporadic feeders, some refusing often. Then once producing their first clutch all have become regular feeders, hardly ever refusing. Just thought it was an interesting observation....

Interested if anyone else has observed the same?

I have very little experience here, seeing that I've only had one clutch. But I can say that after she laid and got back to feeding my pastel female absolutely pounds the food, even accepting FT she would never touch in the past. Hopefully I can try to prove the theory with a few more females this year.

Nice observation Scott!

I have seen that in a lot of my females and that is why I try and breed some smaller ones that are giving me real problems. Sometimes getting them in the breeding rotation with a male will get them going and sometimes it dont? Most of my girls that lay come on strong but I have a few that will not start eating till after their eggs hatch and the eggs are in the incubator????? Go figure.....

Not as of yet. My very sporadic feeder has laid two clutches for me and is STILL a sporadic feeder.

Scott,
I agree. I have also taken mouse eaters and converted them to rats after they've laid. Yeah baby

I can't speak too much from personal experience but I know that the one girl I have breeding this year was a seriously sporadic feeder for me before I started introducing the males and was sitting around 1600g from the day I got her. Once she was cooled though and we started putting the males in with her she's started absolutely POUNDING the rats every chance she gets and she's now up to about 2000g!

Oh my goodness yes big time.. I strongly believe my female pied would be 900grams for life if she hadn't laid.. After that clutch she ate like no tomorrow..

It's almost as if, it erases their bad feeding patterns completely..