Neo's Blog

Poor Neo was in a lot of pain yesterday I came down to see her in the morning, and she was lying with her eyes half closed, even though her lights were on (she is usually very time-aware, being fully awake in the daytime, and fast asleep all through the night). She had even turned orange (her stress colours), so I guess she was very uncomfortable! Nothing had been upsetting her from outside her vivarium, so it must have been due to the pain. She was lying with her front arms flipped back along her sides, her back legs splayed out sideways at right angles to her body like she was doing the splits, and her chin resting on the floor. She was lying sort of to one side, so she wasn't lying on top of her eggs inside her, but at an angle so they were bulging out to the side of her. (I would have taken a picture, but I didn't want to disturb her!) She had obviously found a position, strange as she may have looked, that resulted in the least amount of pain for her. She wasn't interested in anything: not looking at anyone walking past, ignoring food, water... until after lunchtime, as she hadn't been eating much anyway, I decided to intervene by spraying some water onto the sides of her mouth with one of those plant-misting bottles (never had anything but fresh water in it, of course!! ) to try and get her to drink a bit. It worked and she started lapping at it like a dog would lick at someone's hand if it had some sort of sweet taste on it! It only lasted for a few seconds though, before she decided she'd had enough and retreated to her log. She stayed there for most of the rest of the day, after shuffling herself to find a new position that resulted in the least amount of pain for her.





Her orange colour gradually faded back to her usual calm browns, and although she still seemed to be in pain, she allowed me to give her a gentle belly-rub to see if it helped her at all. A few minutes after that, she retreated to her bedroom/digging area, turned around a few times, and... nothing!!! ...I thought that would have been too good to be true!!

Neo lay on the soil in her egging-area for about ten minutes, before coming back out to rest again in her basking spot.

Perhaps another day!!!

Today, Neo has reached her 'I don't want to be touched!' stage, and keeps flicking my hand away if I lean out to go near her. She has also stopped asking to come out and wander around, and doesn't even want to come out when I leave the door open for her. Although, she is still eating a few mouthfuls of rocket leaves every now and again. I think if all goes well, we should see some eggs in the next week or two!!