I'm wondering what Bubbles (Axanthic) is up to. I've been pairing her since December with Yellow Dude (Killerbee het Axanthic) when they both decided to go off food. Suddenly in the middle of January she's eating like a pig, and the rare and sporadic locks have turned into 18+ hour locks that start within 2 hours of putting him in her tub (I put him in Sun-Tues, he gets Wed-Sat off). She's gained about 300g empty weight, shed last week, and looks kind of fat and feels very slightly squishy. She doesn't currently favor any particular section of her tub, sometimes warm, sometimes cooler. I try to palpate her (after watching Justin Kolbylka's lovely videos) twice a week but I can't feel anything.

Was the shed (fingers crossed) perhaps the shed that comes before the pre-ov shed? Is she building and the follicles are perhaps still on the small side? Do you always able to feel follicles before ovulation? Am I just getting hopeful/excited over nothing? I guess what I'm really asking is do you base your assessment of where your females are on the breeding timeline by feeling follicles (for those who don't have an ultrasound) or more off other signs?

Also should I move her water bowl to the cooler end? Right now I keep bowls near the heat tape since our relative humidity has been around 9-20%. Should I add another bowl so she can wrap on it if so desired? Sorry for the 20 questions, I just want to get as few things wrong as possible, and everyone here has a lot of experience I can hopefully benefit from. Thanks!