Gravid female--What to do?

[Twobeardieguy]

Yes, we already had a female do that to us! She would lay here then lay their then look at us then plop one in the center then dig dig dig! :roll: It was a pain in the rump! But most will have it all done in an hour or two!

 

[remi1]

Wow, that sounds like it was really frustrating!

Ok, nervous mom here. I can take her out when she's filled up her hole, right?

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Yuppers! make sure to give her a nice long soak and a healthy salad with calcium on it! Also double up on calcium for the next week or so! Just watch her urates!

 

[remi1]

I gave her a long soak (20min, but she hates baths) and offered her chicken and squash babyfood. I then gave her a collard, winter squash, parsnip and green bean salad w/ calcium.

I dug up her eggs: 24!! This morning she weighed 390, and after she weighed 330. Poor thing. Here's a pic of all her eggs w/my dirty hand next to it for comparison:

I have one last (hopefully) question: she seems kind of lost and out of it. She keeps looking around like she's looking for something. My irrational side fears that there's still an egg left in her, but my rational side says it's probably just fatigue. Do they normally act like this afterward?

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Colleen, yes she will look around for a while for the eggs. She got them all out if she covered the hole. You can feel under her tummy tomorrow and see if you feel any. Tomorrow everything should be fine! She is tired and wore down so just let her rest! Any more questions just ask!

 

[remi1]

Lance, thank you so much for answering all my questions!

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't feel an egg tomorrow, but I'll give it a try. I had her at the vets 2 days ago and he couldn't feel any eggs. The intern couldn't either, so I was told she wasn't gravid :roll:

 

[Twobeardieguy]

You are very welcome. You have to love the false readings however sometimes you really cant feel inside the belly because of fat pockets. The only other way would be an ex-ray or sometimes blood work to determine hormone levels. And congrats again on going through this whole thing, you did great!

 

[remi1]

Hey Lance, I think I'm going to have to pick your brain again...
So Remi laid her eggs Sunday. Monday she ate like a horse (crickets, supers, waxworms, phoenix worms), Tuesday she ate ok, but since then she's progressively eating less and less. She pooped an itty-bit on Monday, but no poop since then.. until today. I worked in a veterinary diagnostics lab for a while, mainly in parasitology so I spent a lot of time with poop. After working with sick and dead animal poo for so long, I'm very used to the way it smells, but her poo turned my stomach. I went poking around in it to see what was in there and I took pictures:

Half of it that I picked it up: (The green bits are from her salad this morning with which she felt the need to decorate her viv)

This here I broke apart, very hard and gritty:

This was a fluid-filled vesicle that I accidentally popped while squeezing. Is it a retained egg? The fluid from it was kinda yellow-ish and mucousy.

And the rest of it on her blankey with little superworm exoskeleton pieces, the urate, etc:

She had a fecal done less than a year ago and was parasite-free.
Pretty sure this isn't normal. Has this happened to you? How serious is this? I have a vet appt on Monday for xrays, but will take her in sooner if you think I should. I feel like I sometimes over-react when something's not right, but she's my little girl!