Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my gravid female panther started digging earlier in her laying site (vermiculit/playground sand) moistened in a bucket, she dug fairly deep and i couldnt see her anymore like the last time she laid, however she has been down there much longer than i remember from last time and im worried. has anyone had any experience with digging gravid females becoming trapped/caved in...ect..., should i wait more or try to dig her out??? opions pls

She knows what to do. Look down the whole and try to see her, but it would probably be a bad idea to dig her up, especially if you are interupting her laying.
-----
CANADIAN CHAMELEONS

well i got all paranoid and dug down to the bottom, fortunently i just barely excavated the top of her hed, she was ok and seemed to be in the egg laying stage still, i staked some of the substrate behind her and turned the light off, 10-15 min later she was covering up so i removed her and had a much easier time knowing where the eggs were (not saying this was a good idea at all, just worked out well in that sense) she laid 15 which i know is on the low side but that was the exact size of her last clutch so im pretty confident she completed laying, i think she just tends to lay fewer, larger eggs. i feel like such an ideot for freakin out b/c if i had stopped to think i would have remembered that in nature the babies dig there way out of worse conditions than that just when they hatch, o well no disaster . thx as always for the advice

Hey...we all stress when our girls lay eggs..(I personally beleive they stay down there longer than needed to make us worry!!! LOL)

I am so glad things turned out all right!!!
-----
----------------------
1.1 Cats -Siamese Emma, Asian Leopard Cat Hau-Li
2.2.Horses - Percheron Girls - Colea and Ivy - Thoroughbred Machine to Tower and my beloved Brilliant Display (Rainbow Bridge)
2.1 Leopard Geckos -Gamarrah, Gabera and Monster Zero
1.0 Miniature Goat - Betty
1.0 Dog - Bess
1.0 African Grey - Molly

I loved Pudge, don't get me wrong...but I am glad I let Tyler talk me into a male.

Kris
-----
2.1 Black Labs Tucker, Raider and Lacey
1.0 Lepoard Gecko Kumar (Another lost pet RIP and party on with Harold!)
3.0 Horses Smoothie, Rocky and Bogey
1.0 Husbands (he puts up with me)
1.2 Kids-Trevor, Logan and Rylie
1.1 Ferrets Tank and Ellie (The fun fuzzies)
1.1 Veiled Chams Squiggy and Pudge (may she RIP)
0.1 Snowflake Cornsnake Lucky

My experience is limited to 2 clutches, but similar to yours. My female veiled, Sunshine, spent almost 18 in the hole last time she laid. She started to dig before 4:00 pm and she was out with hole covered around 1100 the following morning. All was fine, she knew what to do, it was me worring. I had a very small torch I would sneakly and quickly use in order to see at least a piece of her moving in the hole. The hole was deep and dark. She was fine all the time. I believe she actually fell asleep in the hole during the night.
-----
1.1 Skipper & Sunshine - Veiled Chameleons
1.1 Jimmy & Hydra - Water Dragons
1.0 Trionix - Smooth soft shell turtle
1.0 Apalone - Spiny texas soft shell turtle
0.1 Irish Brook M - Standardbred mare (retired racehorse)
1.0 Sir Edward - Ragdoll cat, sire
0.3 Shannan, Jalisse, Slick - cats
?.? Some fish