snowgyre

I've never had females ovulate without first being exposed to a male. This exposure can be something as insignificant as scent, but it's still exposure. In my experience, females don't produce eggs very often without this exposure, so I don't think worrying about egg bound females kept singly or with other females is much of a problem.

Infertile eggs can come from a variety of ways. One, the male was shooting blanks. Two, the female didn't store the sperm long enough to fertilize the egg. Three, the female may simply be young and the chances of fertilization is lower than normal. Four, poor nutrition. A lot of factors influence it, but in most cases you still need a male to stimulate egg production. I really think that having a male present is more important than even the photoperiod or environmental factors to get the females to ovulate.

I think Kelli has nailed the solution right on the nose! :-)