Two days after releasing the eggs, she makes a nest

Two days ago the turtle released four eggs after more than 12 hour trying to dig a nest .

 

Yesterday, it rained all day and temperatures were around 14ºC. The turtles were inactive.

 

Today it was summer again, with a sunny day and an evening temperature of 24ºC. Today the turtle made a nest. She begun at 18:00 and it was finished at 22:00.

 

This time she has chosen a sandy area and she has done it very quickly,  4 hours. Sometimes, before they lay the eggs,  they make trial nests but then they don't bother to cover them. This time it was a proper nest, covered carefully.

 

 

Just in case I was mistaken when I palpated her, I opened the nest chamber. It was empty.

Two days ago the Cemmys didn't make  a proper nest. She didn't lay the eggs and carefully put them into the nest chamber, pressing them with the legs and finally covering the nest again. She just expelled the eggs and went away. It looks as though somehow in her brain she was not conscious of having layed the eggs and she still had the urge to make a nest and lay the unnexistant eggs.

 

Last year I injected oxytocine to a friend's Terrapene. He had them in pine cork substrate and I think it didn't let them build a proper nest. They carried the eggs for several weeks and were making trial nests day after day. So they were injected oxytocine and they layed the eggs. But then it happened something similar to today's performance: they still kept digging nests although they didn't carry eggs. The only difference is that they didn't cover those nests.