Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My female box turtle has been restless for a week and half now. I know she is pregnant because I feel the eggs in her. However, the last two days she has yet to lay the eggs, but I don't feel the eggs in her anymore. Before I could feel them up by the crease in between her back leg and shell. Do they move back towards the tail right before she is about to lay? She has laid eggs before and her behavior is normal, I just don't remember her being quite this restless or picky about her nesting spot. Also have any of you ever witnessed a box laying her eggs any time besides the evening? I never have, either in captivity or the wild. Thanks

The eggs don't 'move back' prior to laying: usually when I palpate my gravid turtles, I feel the eggs toward the bridge, not the hind legs.
So far as nesting goes, last year I happened upon one of ours digging at about 3pm one afternoon, and she was done (digging, laying and re-covering) by about 8pm.
Mine can be 'picky' about laying eggs if they're being watched too closely or otherwise interfered with. Maybe you just need to observe your girl from a discreet distance.

my large female laid 4 eggs on the 18th, I am not sure how long she had been digging but I watched her from 9:30 till 11:35pm, by which time she had moved far enough from the nest to remove the eggs but was still tamping the ground down, she did the little tamping dance for about an hour, talk about picky.
if you dont feel the eggs anymore she likely laid them already, it's not uncommon for nests to go unwitnessed, every year posts show up from keepers about suprise hatchlings in an enclosure.
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In 20 years, I've only seen Eastern box turtles nest from the hours of about 2pm until 3am. In all of this time, I've never found suprise hatchlings, but I did find a nest VERY late in the year. This was long after I had stopped making my nightly trip out to the pens to look for nesters. Now, I'm not home every night, so I have a trick. It's not new, and I'm sure others use this method also. I sprinkle white smooth sand on the area where the turtles always seem to lay. I have red clay where I live now, and my pen in NJ had black dirt(oh, I miss it so). I lay it about an inch or so thick, and reapply when they trample over it until the clay shows. Any nests that I've missed glow like a beacon using this method. Plus, the addition of sand to this clay really helps with drainage issues.

I've only been breeding other species for a short time, so I can't give you very reliable information about them. I will tell you that it seems like ornata and luteola prefer to nest in the morning. As I recall, you have Easterns anyway.

After living in South Jersey, I will give you a warning. Watch for ants! If you missed a nest, there's a good chance that the ants will find it for you! I don't know what it was about up there, but sometimes I would leave the nest be for a while until I really had the time to get the eggs set up. It took the ants only about 12 hours to locate the nests and begin digging! My pens were set up in the same spot for my entire childhood, so I'm sure that the ants used it as their major food source. You may not have that type of trouble with a new setup. Good luck!

Over the last 5 years she has laid her eggs in two locations both about a yard apart. Those are the spots I normally check and can normally tell if she dug there because the soil is loose in the shape of a circle. I don't think she dropped them yet because she is still very restless. Ken, funny you mentioned the ants, last year the ants got them I never considered that a threat. One day I went out there and there was bits of egg shell strewn about. Guess I'll keep a close eye on her and see how things go. Thanks for the help.
Chris

My females usually lay late afternoon into the evening, but one also started digging/laying early morning.(6am) Don't know when she finished but I dug them up later in the afternoon and artificially incubated with 6 of 7 hatching. She only did this one time, this was 4 years ago and she has been a late afternoon nester since that time.
Phil