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Our RES Crush is about 17ish years old. We adopted her from someone who didn't give her adequate food, or having a basking area, or warm water (and also thought she, was a he, and clearly I was right about that, haha) . We think she basically lived in hibernation! She was about 12 yrs and only about 2in in diameter. She is now about 7in in shell length. She is active and loves to eat. Last month she started to try to get out of her tank like crazy. Odd for her. So fast forward to today...there were 2 (what we are assuming) were eggs in her tank! So we run to Turtle Talk. It says to get her an egg laying area. So questions...
1) How hard is it to tell if there are more eggs? She isn't really fond of being held and messed with!
2) How long can I leave her in the nesting area? Does it need to be connected to water somehow?
3) Do I feed her while shes in the nesting area? I didn't think you were supposed to feed them not in water.


HELP and Thanks!!!

Christine

Most have found manmade nesting boxes do not work , your back yard garden does better but do not leave unsupervised !
And yes will be more eggs to come. No matter how elaborate you make a box your garden normally works best !
Could be anywhere from 2-20 eggs per clutch.
Be prepared to get scratched when checking for eggs , use a towel to prevent that.


Watch here : https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=ho ... ORM=VRDGAR

Also good read : http://www.redearslider.com/reproduction.html

I have grass in my yard, and no flower bed/garden. They have to dig down, right? So grass won't work?

Right, maybe you can see where she likes and remove some the grass. I would try to feel for eggs first, she might not be carrying any at this time.

She definitely still has eggs. I felt at least 2 last night. One was in her tank this morning.

If she's doing the whole restless routine, then you can anticipate when to take her out of the tank. Although, she might be through that phase where she wants to nest and just ends up expelling the eggs.

How long can she be out of the water?

Do I feed her out of the water?

For nesting, they usually find a spot within a few minutes. She will need to be in water to eat.