For around a month, I've been struggling with a female YBS of around four years who has been exhibiting gravid behaviour. It started in mid-March with constant escape attempts, loss of appetite, scratching and worse. She even burned her head on the heat lamp in one attempt to escape (I since treated the burn and it's looking good). I didn't notice what the problem was immediately, because even though I raised her and another female YBS from hatchlings, I've never had to deal with this before as neither of them have ever been gravid, or acted gravid.
In early April after recognizing the signs, I set up a nesting box for her using about 4 inches of topsoil in a 30 gallon container. She never laid eggs in the box, but after one two hour stint in there, I caught her eating eggs she'd laid in the water. I counted at least three. She ate them very quickly.
After that she was quiet so after a few more days I assumed she'd gotten it out of her system. I figured she'd most likely laid more eggs than I'd seen and disposed of the evidence when I wasn't looking. She was quiet and behaved normally for weeks.
Over the last few days she has started to exhibit the same over-excited behaviour. Although maybe not as frantic as before, she has been scratching and attempting to escape, the only real difference is that she's now eating anything I feed her, so her appetite is good. It's still a problem though - yesterday I caught her on her dock (it's an above-tank turtle topper) just as she managed to flip herself upside-down on her shell in an attempt to escape.
I can't *feel* any eggs and she's not laying more when I put her in the box. I've yet to see her lay any more eggs in the water.
Is there something else I could be doing to help her along? Is it possible after all this time that she is now eggbound?
