I hope I'm wrong

[Alara]

My Xena seems to be showing signs of laying eggs.  She's the one that kept laying clutch after clutch after clutch of infertile eggs.  Her last clutch was July of last year.

I really hope I'm misinterpreting her signals but I'm going to be setting up her lay box just in case.  If she is about to lay, I hope she doesn't do what she did last time and lay clutches once a month.   

[Thewolfmantom]

Good Luck,
I remember last year.

[Alara]

I went to the garden store after work and bought 2 bags of potting soil.  Good thing I bought 2 bags because part of one bag was frozen.  When I got home and started preparing her laybox Xena got very very excited.  The soil was quite cold so before I put her in I had a heating pad underneath and a heat lamp on top and tried speeding the warming up using a hair dryer.  I probably could have waited until the heat lamp and heating pad warmed up the soil but I didn't want her to have to wait too long, especially considering how excited she got.

Once she was in her laybox she promptly started digging.  Now I just have to wait and see what happens.

[Alara]

Not this time but I've never known her to dig like she did just now except for when she was close to laying.  Within the next few days I would expect.

[zebrajanie]

Good luck to you both... I too, remember last year.. Had you in a frazzle she did, Alara.
Janie

[Alara]

I think I was more than frazzled lol.

Ok, so she laid 26 eggs.  24 were buried, 1 was on top of the soil, and 1 was laid a little afterwards.  Her clutch size when starting out was around 27-33 eggs so fairly close to that.  I'm just paranoid because her last clutch was 39 eggs but that was in July of last year.  She was given a bath after coming out of her laybox and another about a half an hour later (when she had trouble last time a bath seemed to stimulate the last 5 or so left to come out).  She seemed fairly active but she wouldn't eat any roaches afterwards.

It's possible she just really doesn't feel like eating roaches.  In the morning I plan to provide another bath, she loves her baths so it's not a stressor, and trying to offer roaches again (after she's warmed up of course).  I'll also call around the pet stores and see if they have any decent silkworms (her current favourite) and pick up some crickets as well.  Maybe I'll buy another large supply of silkworms online.

I hope this isn't another start to her monthly clutches like last time but I'll try not to worry about it until I know for sure.

[ewstokes]

one time my lady laid 5 clutches and then 7 mos later she laid another, without any contact from the male between times.