It's happened to me much too often for my taste within the last 3 years. I've had egyptians and now a libyan greek go through the whole process of nesting. They'll dig a hole, sit at the hole like the were going through labor, then going through the process of covering the nest again. All the egyptians laid eggs later. One egyptian nested 4 times before she laid her first egg. The egg wasn't over calcified, so she didn't retain it from the first 3 times. The egg is fertile and about to hatch. The other female laid twice before digging a phantom nest then laid 3 more eggs after. The libyan is a captive born female and this is her first time nesting it was probably from the advances of a male that got her to do this. Ramming plays a big part in Testudo reproduction, so sometimes I'm thinking if a female isn't quite ready to lay but is being harrased by a male. It can get her hormones out of whack where she thinks she is carrying eggs. That makes her want to go through the whole process. I'm just glad all my females went through the whole process of nesting so they had closure to everything.
The only thing I can think to do for now Claire is to seperate the males and females. That will hopefully calm everything down.
Dan
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