Help for my friend's corn

[Warren_Booth]

You should palpate this female to determine if she has retained eggs. If you did not deliberately attempt to breed her, then she have retained eggs due to the lack of availability of a suitable nest site. Normally, this will be a dark, humid box with soil or moss as a substrate and a small opening on the side or top. By taking the corn out then letting her move across your palms, apply slight pressure with your fingertips no her underside, from around half way down her body. Eggs, viable or not, will feel like small bumps about an inch long each. So imagine a string of pearls, but larger. If you feel anything like this, whether one or more, then you should do two things. 1) provide a moist hide box (as described above) in a warm spot in the enclosure, and cover the cage to give her privacy. If she is comfortable, she may lay the eggs within a few days. If not, then 2) take her to a vet. Normally if it was close to the egg laying time they would give her an oxytocin injection to stimulate contractions. In this case however, they would likely recommend surgery to remove the eggs. Without that, they can rot or rupture, resulting in septicemia and death. After she evacuates the eggs, she should resume feeding, likely after shedding her skin.

Warren