I lost my female red ackie yesterday night. She was gravid and I think that something went wrong in the nesting that did her in. This cycle was her first for this year, it appeared to be going normally until about three days ago. When she has cycled before she will normally dig down and stay down for a few day and then come up with a very skinny tail. She would eat like crazy and look normal in a few days. This time she came up and her tail looked a bit thin but you could still tell she had the eggs in her. The male bugged her a bit that day but then I never saw him bug her again so I left him in thinking she would lay in a couple days at most. She was under a Retes stack last night and the bit of her tail that was sticking out looked thin like she had laid so I decided to check. She was dead then, her tail was thin, but her body was very thick, she seemed fairly bloated beyond what I would expect for the short amount of time she could have been there. I always try to bother them as little as possible when they are gravid. I had moved her into a new cage about 2 months ago. I think the nesting should have been better in this cage, much deeper substrate and a better temp range. I used the same soil she nested in before.
It is really frusterating to loose her after she has produced so many nice eggs that I have managed to kill off everytime.
Steve
