Eggbound...?!

[Labinnah]

I'm very worried about one of my females. She's about four feet long and is in the process of laying her eggs. She started laying about three days ago... but something appears very wrong. She's only popped out an average of about one egg a day so far. The first two were odd looking, one was clearly a dead egg, the other was small and round, like a turtle egg. She's had two more that've both been more of the normal, longish shape. I've only been able to move one into the incubator though, she won't let me take the other one (though it looks fine and it appears to be unturned).
I mentioned this to a coworker, who also keeps corns, and she said that it sounds like a calcium deficency or eggbound. That's what I was afraid of, but I don't know how she could be calcium deficient, I provided her with plenty before she became heavily gravid. I'm in the process of finding a vet, but they're few and far between out here... what can I do?

 

[PaulSage]

Similar experience last year

Last year one of my females, now nicknamed "juggy" (keep reading) had gotten loose while my friends were taking care of my snakes for me while I was in the hospital (salmonella poisoning - a confirmed case from Perkins restaurant - NOT reptiles) She crawled into a milkjug that had about a 1/2 inch of water still in it and laid a clutch of 19 eggs. After cutting the jug open and incubating the eggs I found (all of which hatched despite being somewhat underwater for about two days) I returned her to her tub in the rack and she proceeded to lay an additional 9 eggs over the next week or so. Most of these eggs never hatched, and as I recall, only a couple of them were actually fertile. She recovered just fine and went on to lay a second and then a third clutch, both of which were completely normal. She is however, a very large and robust snake, and it would have been next to impossible to detect any remaining eggs inside her abdomen, so I am assuming she was never technically "egg-bound". If you're considering manually removing any remaining eggs, I would check out Kathy Love's site, where she outlines how she does so with a large-guage needle. I have had luck with bathing suspected egg-bound females in a 10 gallon tank with about two-three inches of warm water around 95-100* for a couple hours. One of my snow corns passed her last egg that way, which was at least twice the size of any of her other eggs.
Just a few suggestions, but if you take her to a vet, make sure he/she has experience with reptiles, and remember, a lot of vets can be very "sharps-friendly" (I used to work in a clinic, and often times the vets' first response had to deal with a scalpal or needle...)
Hope it helps.
Paul