I just spend a full week trying to understand why you guys lost some perfectly healthy gravid females.
I know you think they died from egg binding, however I don’t think this is the case.
Retention serve a purpose, lizards have the ability to hold onto eggs until nesting conditions are right, though I wasn’t able to determined how long they can retain eggs without any illefects, I was able to certify from past experience that one month seems reasonable for any female, I also know wild lizards also retain when conditions requires them to do so.

Though I was able to make this female retain a full week after she started digging, I felt this experiment was unnecessary, this female is nesting today simply because I provided her with good nesting options. She spent the week with no options and poor temps.

My conclusion is that lizards must be provided with a choice of temps, hydration, nesting materials, I mean not only one choice but many choice of each, if they are not provided with choices they will retain, it’s this simple.

Don’t waste your time on things that aren’t relevant to nesting, good options are all your lizards need to nest properly. I read many articles from supposedly competent sources on the net, and none seem to match my understanding, in fact I wouldn’t waste time and animals on them.

My opinion on why your lizards died, they starved.
Advanced females (especially past due time) don’t move as much for hunting and drinking, the eggs they are carrying are energy demanding, even if she doesn’t move she’s burning energy like hell, reptiles have the ability to produce some internal heat, this protects the embryos from low temps and keeps the females metabolism higher then normal, at this time females need more of little quality foods then normally, otherwise she will get the needed proteins from her very own body.
This simple down to earth approach was no mentioned anywhere, seems like science miss out on simple things.

Anyway the facts are that your lizards missed on the above and consequently failed, I see no need to search any farther.

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