Hello, I'm came to this forum in hopes to get the opinions and advice from other turtle owners. First, I'll present my turtle :
Hermanne is a RES we found in the road in front of our house 4 years ago, we live in France and they're considered and invasive species. Our first tough was to call vets and animal associations to ask what to do with her, they all said that she will need to be euthanised. That was so unfair to the poor thing that did nothing wrong so we searched for a reptile refuge that could take her in but the only one nearby, was the "turtle village", on the other side of the country. The turtle, that we named Hermanne, is really gentle and is not afraid of people so we think that maybe she was abandonned, so while we waited to take a decision I did lots of research about turtle care and decided to take care of her. It's been 4 years since, without any issues, she's been healthy, active and has had a diet of pellets/lettuce and the occasional treat of meat. She is estimated to be around 5-10 years old, the last time we weight her she was around 2kg, and her size is aprox 20-22cm/7-8,5 inches. When we found her she had a bit of shell rot but I treated it and now she has a pretty and healthy.
Earlier this week, after I cleaned her indoor tank and the temperatures started to rise, she started to display some strange behavior. Frantically wanting to get out when in water and loss of appetite, something to note, when I take her back into her indoor tank and put her in the water, she lets out a "fart" from her cloaca, today I realised that it was pee that she let out all at once, perhaps because of the stress of wanting to get out of that particular tank? It turns out that she wants to lay eggs.
It's not the first time she does, the first year we had her she laid them in the water and ate them then the 2nd year, during the pandemic, I built her an outdoor enclosure with a pond where she laid 2 clutches of eggs. Last year she didn't showed any signs of being gravid but having spend whole days alone outside, she had plenty of time to lay them without us noticing. This year she's more affected by it, she only wants to look for a suitable place to dig, she's relentless about it.
Her outdoors enclosure with enough space to lay eggs (I'll see if I can attach some pictures), there's a sandy beach next to her pond and a dirt area under banana trees that provide shadow. Currently it's very hot outside: around 37°C/98°F. During the nights the temp. can drop beetween 10-18°C/50-64°F, considering it's below the recommended temperature, I take her inside to her indoors tank just to sleep and eat(with filter, Lights, heather, I feed her outside also when possible). The outdoors pond has lots of water lettuces and a bif filter, there are also 6 goldfishs (we had them since we built it), she never tried to eat them.
Now the issue is that when she's not basking, she walks around her enclosure many, many times and sometimes tries to climb up the fence. Seeing that she might want to dig somewhere outside her enclosure I've spend hours watching her in the garden looking for somewhere to dig. But, she only goes for where the ground is "grey", for example the concrete patio where she did her best do dig up a nest with her rear legs to no result of course. Then after doing some prospection in our parking where the ground is compact gravel. There she tried to dig 3 holes but abandonned them (She managed to go quite far despite the hardness of the ground). I even tried to put her in a nesting box with soft soil/sand to no avail as she wants to get out.
Do you know why she insists in going for hard/impossible places to dig despite having a enclosure with dedicated space for her to dig? I don't mind spending all the time necessary watching her in the garden until she finds a suitable place (usally in the morning or evening when it's less hot) but during the weeks I work so she can only be in her enclosure. Maybe the really high temperatures are too hot for her to lay? I've read all articles and guides about gravid turtles, and I know that egg retention is a serious thing, considering her as a close friend, I can't help but to worry for her health. Specially when she has lost her appetite and hasn't eaten anything since monday, not reacting even to her favorite treats. I've added some cuttlebone to see if she would bite a chunk of it but nothing so far.
That's why I would like to have other people's opinion on this situation, of course, If I don't see any positive progress, I'll try to find a vet for turtles, even if they're all been hostile towards RES so far.
Thank you for your attention!
