Fall/ Winter weight loss

[Levi the Leopard]

Those of you in cooler climates, do your outdoor tortoises experience any weight loss during Fall and Winter?

When I lived in sunny SoCal my torts continually gained weight.
Now I'm in southern Oregon and my outdoor leopard tortoise has lost some weight. I'm just wondering if I should expect that to some degree. I mean he isn't getting out and eating as much. I do bring him in every 2 or 3 days for a soak and special meal, is that often enough?
His heated house door is opened every day so he can choose to come out and graze.

 

[Len B]

I feed more mazuri when the outside temps get cooler, If anything some of mine actually seem to grow quicker over winter. Their appetites might decrease a little but so does their activity because of the cold shorter daylight hours. The ones I bring in for winter still get enough hours of artificial light but not the same area for wandering they have outside, so they don't burn the calories they would when outside in warm weather wandering and grazing.

 

[wellington]

Heather, it's really hard to say. Tatum doesn't do much during the cold months, but he doesn't eat as much either, so he pretty much stays the same. The two females, well they have not slowed down on their eating and even though inside now, they never were big roamers, so I'm going to guess they will probably stay the same too. First winter with the two of them. I did have the first little girl for part of last winter, but with the rehabbing and her not eating as she should, can't really count that time.
The weight I had seen in the past with Tatum was minimal and probably the time of the weigh in as I was not consistent on the time, etc.
I would have to say it will depend on the tort. With this being Levi's first real cold winter, it's hard to say what he will do. It's not really anything I would worry about. Just feed as usual. You may even see him skip a day or two, Tatum does. Then he will clean his plate when he goes back to it. Hope this helps