# Restless hibernation



## wampler114 (Dec 10, 2008)

I have a ~2 year old Desert Tortoise who I got in March. In the first week of November I hibernated him inside after doing a bit of reading on it. Just like was expected he hadn't eaten anything in about a week and a half and was very listless.

I hibernated him in a box inside with an opening in the front covered by a blanket. I put in some shredded newspaper and he seemed happy for the first month or so.

Within the last 7 days he gets restless in the morning. I can hear him scratching the inside of his box (he can get out if he wanted to, he's scratching the back side). It's like he's trying to burrow deeper or something.

This can't be good or natural. I mean, he has to be eating through stored up calories doing this.. Did I do something wrong? Does anyone else's tortoise do this during hibernation?

Also I keep the place between 60 - 70 degrees. And he tends to scratch more in the morning when it is closer to 60 degrees, but as a test I had it at 70 degrees in the morning... he still scratched around for about 2 hours.


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## Yvonne G (Dec 10, 2008)

Sixty to seventy degrees is way too warm for a hibernating tortoise. It should be between 40 and 50 degrees.

Yvonne


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## RTfanatic (Dec 10, 2008)

Waaaaaay too warm. No reason to hibernate them in that temperature regardless of the time of year.


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## Crazy1 (Dec 11, 2008)

Yep gotta get those temps down like yvonne said 40F to 50s F.


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## Vegasjoe (Dec 13, 2008)

too high of temps cause the tortoise to have a high metabolism and if he is not eating then the body will start to eat muscle away since there is not food. Lowering temps cause the body to slow down the processes, also check and make sure dehydration is taking place.


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