alicemcmk
New Member
Hi everyone
I have an issue I wonder you could help me with. We adopted a 15 yr old male Russian from a family on this site last summer. He had brumated for the first time in 15 years with them last winter so I felt we needed to do the same thing. We live in LA so I decided the safest method was in a small fridge outside with a thermometer always reading 40. We followed his lead and when he stopped eating and started burrowing in his outdoor enclosure for most of the day we began his 2 week fast with daily baths.
So into the fridge he went almost 2 weeks ago. Checking on him daily to allow some air into the fridge. However twice now I have left the fridge open for 2/3 mins while gardening just to allow fresh air in and both times when I’ve gone to close the fridge he is awake and semi climbing out of the container.
If I close the fridge and go back and check on him in 30 mins or so he is back asleep. I’m just really wondering now if he doesn’t want to brumate now for some reason? Should I wake him up and cancel his hibernation altogether or should we disturb him less and just not allow the fridge to be open for long?
My 10 year old is obsessed with him and we would all be so devastated if something went wrong so any thoughts you had would be amazing.
Thank you so much!
I have an issue I wonder you could help me with. We adopted a 15 yr old male Russian from a family on this site last summer. He had brumated for the first time in 15 years with them last winter so I felt we needed to do the same thing. We live in LA so I decided the safest method was in a small fridge outside with a thermometer always reading 40. We followed his lead and when he stopped eating and started burrowing in his outdoor enclosure for most of the day we began his 2 week fast with daily baths.
So into the fridge he went almost 2 weeks ago. Checking on him daily to allow some air into the fridge. However twice now I have left the fridge open for 2/3 mins while gardening just to allow fresh air in and both times when I’ve gone to close the fridge he is awake and semi climbing out of the container.
If I close the fridge and go back and check on him in 30 mins or so he is back asleep. I’m just really wondering now if he doesn’t want to brumate now for some reason? Should I wake him up and cancel his hibernation altogether or should we disturb him less and just not allow the fridge to be open for long?
My 10 year old is obsessed with him and we would all be so devastated if something went wrong so any thoughts you had would be amazing.
Thank you so much!