Female Burmese Mtn Tort not eating after egg-laying

rte123

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My Manouria emys emys layed her 5th yearly batch of eggs (34) on Aug 1. Her post-egg-laying behavior this year is worrisome. Her nest building behavior was like past years and she stopped eating almost entirely beginning about 3 weeks before laying her eggs. Like last year, however, after laying the eggs, she seemed to sense that her clutch of eggs were no longer buried (I had removed them) in the nest in that she continued to examine and root around the nest, sometimes burying her head into the area where the eggs had been. It is sad to watch. But the problem now is that she has not started eating yet. She paces day and night around the nest and last night started scratching and pulling more material onto her nest. She does drink when I put her in water but eats nothing. She turns away from the food dish or walks away. I rarely see her sleeping. She is obviously in the instinctive trance state of nest guarding that is expected for a couple of weeks after laying her clutch but I am very worried about her physical exhaustion and malnutrition at this point. I have tried blocking off her ability to get to or even see her nest for a couple of days but she would just stand outside most of the day looking toward her now hidden nest; ie, no resolution. So, I gave her access again. Some of her eggs in the incubator are non-viable and I am thinking about putting those back in her nest in the hope that she will sense that her nest is intact after all. Does anyone with experience with this species have any additional thoughts or suggestions?
 

tortadise

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This quite typical for manouria. Ours will stop
Eating 2-3 weeks prior to nesting, and post nesting. Should be a few weeks of this. She will be ok.
 
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