Help?? Tortoise only hibernated one month?

[wesleycanon]

Hello please help,

My parents recently moved and brought their desert tortoises with them, but the enclosure had to be moved, and outside was too cold to leave them out there. They kept the tortoises inside, and they entered hibernation for what they said was about a month and a half, but now they’re awake again.

Do we try to put them outside to hibernate again? Do we feed them now they are awake and assume hibernation is over? We think it’s too warm inside for them to hibernate. This has never been a problem before as they always had a safe place to hibernate outside. Weather should be more normal outside now at least. Sorry, I don’t know much about these things but am just trying to help my parents.

 

[SinLA]

Mine sort of went into a dormant state and so I prepped him before hibernation. About a week before he was to be put into the fridge he snapped out of it and is fine... (so about five-six weeks total)

That said, I wouldn't advise hibernating outside in LA. Weather is too warm/erratic and too many risks. Here is a good thread to read:

Tom's Brumation Thread

Every fall we get bombarded here on the forum with all sorts of questions and problems regarding hibernation and tortoises "slowing down" for winter. The purpose of this thread is to talk about all aspects of this subject, to dispel some of the myths and mysteries, and give a "how to" list of...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[Tom]

Hello please help,

My parents recently moved and brought their desert tortoises with them, but the enclosure had to be moved, and outside was too cold to leave them out there. They kept the tortoises inside, and they entered hibernation for what they said was about a month and a half, but now they’re awake again.

Do we try to put them outside to hibernate again? Do we feed them now they are awake and assume hibernation is over? We think it’s too warm inside for them to hibernate. This has never been a problem before as they always had a safe place to hibernate outside. Weather should be more normal outside now at least. Sorry, I don’t know much about these things but am just trying to help my parents.

You need a way to control the temperatures. You need a heated night box with a heat lamp in it for basking on cold winter days. This is shown in the thread that SinLA linked for you. And here is more helpful info to go with it:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org