No eggs
 

At the moment I’m looking after one of my sister in laws torts, a 20 year old marginated, because she is between houses and hasn’t got a suitable place for them to dig and nest. So the tort is in my garden , where there is plenty of suitable digging . Today she got stuck in, digging a nest , then she seemed to stop, and moving her back legs about , as to arranging the eggs, then started filling in, and when I came back again she had finished filling in and walked off. So I went to dig up the eggs......... no eggs! Now mine often start digging or dig for two hours and then abandon the dig, but never fill it in again with no eggs. Have any of you ever had this happen, and have you any ideas why she would do this. Do you think she could actually have any eggs?

Beatrice did this, this week.

A few days before she kept looking for ways to get out and starting to dig small areas.

Three days ago she spent hours making her nest. When I went out to look the nest was covered over and when I dug down - no eggs.

I felt worried that she might be egg bound, but the days have passed and she is back to normal, not trying to get out of her pen, dig a nest or anything. However, I am keeping a close eye.

Sorry Suze, I’ve only had Tabitha and Tamara lay but they only dug nests when they deposited eggs. How frustrating to watch her do all that digging and filling in when so much work goes into it.

Thanks both of you , that’s very interesting. She seems very calm now, like she’s not still gravid at all, so I do wonder if it was a phantom, but can reptiles do this, similar to dogs ?

It can happen Suze, as their hormones sometimes play up:0)

This is really interesting as Beatrice is back to normal. Not trying to escape or nest.

Because she covered over the area so well, if I hadn't seen her digging you would never know she had done this.

Thanks sandy, that’s good to know, she hasn’t been with the boys recently, I don’t know when she last was, but she’s very chilled now, not showing any signs of being gravid.

When I got Dora around seven years ago, she was fine when I first introduced her but a few months later she was awful. Bulshy, biting the other females, marching through them. To cut a long story short it was a phantom pregnancy (Dan said she could smell the other females hormones, so decided to join in!) she settled down & thank goodness hasn't done this since!

That is really interesting.

like females in the office then ....all come 'in tune' so to speak after a month or two , makes sense.