Is my bp egg bound?

[Crews697]

So a couple days ago when I slid one of my gravid females cage open I saw that flash of white that always gets me exited. I seen that she had one egg sitting beside her. I knew that she had a total off four eggs to lay, so I closed the cage and left her alone to finish up. Problem is she never did. I waited several hours excited to get one of my more anticipated clutches in the incubater. After about four hours she had not laid another egg, and wasn't shoiwing any sign of attempting it. I finally decided to take the one egg she did lay, put it in the incubated, and go to bed disappointed.

So its been two days since then, and she still hasn't shown any interest in fineshing her job, and the one egg she dropped turned out to be infertile. She doesnt have any of the risk factors for getting egg bound. She is a good weight, and this is not her first clutch. I was hoping that if I left her alone and waited that she would eventually drop the rest on her own, but at this point I'm debating assisting her in the delivery. I've watched videos on how to force the eggs down and out, and it doesn't seem like a very difficult process, so even though I'm a little nervouse about attempting it I'm sure I can manage to get it done.

So that brings me to my question. I've established that I can assist her in delivering, but shoiukd I? What are the risks of doing so? Or should I give her more time to pass them in her own?

[Ba11er]

I have no experience but my opinion would be to leave her alone. Human intervention would be incredibly stressful and potentially harmful. Many times people think they need to do something when the best course of action is to let nature do its thing.

Unless someone with reall experience doing this says it's medically important to assist her I don't believe you should.

[Crews697]

That's understandable and I will take that into consideration. On the other hand though what are the health risks of not intervening? I imagine if they are in fact stuck then that could cause some serious complications for both mom and eggs

[piedlover79]

If she is egg bound you have to do something. How many days has it been?

[Crews697]

Two days since she dropped the slug

[piedlover79]

I would ramp up the humidity for the next 24 hours and see if that helps. How many days since her pre lay shed?

[Crews697]

50, which is one of the reasons I'm debating intervening. I was actually anticipating another shed before she droped. This girl has thrown me for a loop all season

[piedlover79]

I don't suppose you have a *good* herp vet around? 50 Days isn't unheard of for a post pre-lay shed, but now that one egg has dropped and the others aren't making an appearance it's starting to look like an egg binding issue which is a serious problem.

[Crews697]

Nope, closest one is next state down.

[piedlover79]

That sucks. I'd make sure that the humidity is high, the temp is perfect, and that she's not writhing (if she shows obvious signs of pain something needs to be done fast).

There are real risks in trying to manually remove the eggs, but if she is truly egg bound that will also develop into a life threatening condition.