When does a zebra become an adult?

Jenny · Post by **Jenny** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 12:56 am

Both of my zebras are at least 18 months old - is it possible to sex a zebra correctly by this age. Why I am asking is because, the zebra I thought was a male doesn't appear to have the very long odontodes and any other noticeable signs of a male other than it is always in the cave.

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 3:10 pm

I beleive they can, in the wild, be up to three years old before being sexually mature. I also believe that they can be sexually mature at an earlier age if they are F1's.

Normally the male will develope the long cheek odontodes when he's ready to spawn, and is the alpha in his territory. I understand they can get much shorter odotodes outside of the spawning period, and some males will not get the very long odontodes at all, if they are not the alpha and in a position to advertize themselves as ready to spawn.

Long odontodes are a sign of "I'm the man and ready for you baby" kinda thing

Until that time one has to look at other things to see if one can identify the gender. Like behaviour for instance. If your fish has occupied a cave and defends it, then that's one way of telling that it is indeed a male. So, as mentioned earlier, not all males necessarily gets very long odontodes. It depeneds on the situation, and age of course.

Jenny · Post by **Jenny** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:57 pm

Thanks for your reply McEve, I bought mine as wild caught so that explains there lack of maturity. Perhaps two on their own is too little - I shall have to look at buying some more after Christmas, or, I might suggest as a Christmas present

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 9:45 am

Hi Jenny,

They do better in a group. It might seem like they need to have a pecking order to breed, but I have heard of spawns where there was only three of them too

Andrew C · Post by **Andrew C** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:57 pm

I think it is horses for courses regarding how many to keep together.
As i was quizzing Rob about this last week and he finds it better to keep them in trios (1 male to 2 females), but plenty of people have had sucess with group breeding.

The three years to maturity seems to play a large part, some may even take longer, as the trio i bought last year were fully grown, there was no sign of them breeding after a nearly a year so i started adding more to the tank to have a group, and still no signs.
Groups are good for for aggressive fish to spread the aggression, but for zebras i am now more leaning towards trios.

Post by **Barbie** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 6:51 pm

I had a spawn with my subdominant male and the single female I'd added to his tank from my growout tank. It took them longer to work out what was supposed to happen they cohabitated in the cave off and on for more than a month, but they DID eventually accomplish it. I added a second female put them off spawning again for months

. Someday I'll learn to stop messing with success!

Barbie

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:02 pm

I've heard a few people split up their colony as they find who the dominant male and female is. After they spawn they take those two and move them to a tank by themselves, whereas a new dominant male and female emerge in the original colony, then they move the mto a tank by themselves so on.

It's probably because you get maximum productivity that way...

I still prefer to keep mine in a group, as I imagine they're the happiest when they are in a group. Not a very scientific argument I know