Atlas Encyclopedias
New Member
Hello and greetings from Germany,
this is gonna be my first post on this forum and maybe this has been debated to death already but I'm still curious what the anglo-saxon and english speaking international tortoise community thinks about it.
I'll soon be a first time owner of a marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata) and I really wonder if I absolutely have to hibernate the little guy or girl.
Every piece of german tortoise info I have read says that all Testudo species except for Testudo kleinmanni need to hibernate or they'll get very sick and die. Is this true? Anyone got long term experience with this?
On the Internet you hear a lot about Testudo tortoises that died during or shortly after hibernation but there seem to be zero cases of tortoises that died because they didn't hibernate.
The only thing you hear about is that their sex drive and fertility goes down if you don't hibernate. So I get that for breeding hibernation seems to be necessary. Well I have no interest in breeding and just wanna keep a single tortoise as a pet so it has no relevance to me.
Are there any owners of a mediterranean Testudo species here that never hibernated theirs and still got a healthy old tortoise? I'm really curious.
I get that in the wild these species hibernate and we should do our best to replicate their habitat but honestly people keeping tortoises as pets in places where they don't really belong isn't really natural in the first place. So why not just keep them awake all year to make sure no deadly hibernation accidents can ever happen?
Are there any scientific papers or experiments where different Testudo species where kept without hibernation over years?
I didn't even bother opening a thread like this in a german tortoise forum because I'd just get spammed and insulted to death and apparently there are some crazy german tortoise owners that would literally kill you if they found out you didn't hibernate your Testudo tortoise.
Hoping for a few answers!
this is gonna be my first post on this forum and maybe this has been debated to death already but I'm still curious what the anglo-saxon and english speaking international tortoise community thinks about it.
I'll soon be a first time owner of a marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata) and I really wonder if I absolutely have to hibernate the little guy or girl.
Every piece of german tortoise info I have read says that all Testudo species except for Testudo kleinmanni need to hibernate or they'll get very sick and die. Is this true? Anyone got long term experience with this?
On the Internet you hear a lot about Testudo tortoises that died during or shortly after hibernation but there seem to be zero cases of tortoises that died because they didn't hibernate.
The only thing you hear about is that their sex drive and fertility goes down if you don't hibernate. So I get that for breeding hibernation seems to be necessary. Well I have no interest in breeding and just wanna keep a single tortoise as a pet so it has no relevance to me.
Are there any owners of a mediterranean Testudo species here that never hibernated theirs and still got a healthy old tortoise? I'm really curious.
I get that in the wild these species hibernate and we should do our best to replicate their habitat but honestly people keeping tortoises as pets in places where they don't really belong isn't really natural in the first place. So why not just keep them awake all year to make sure no deadly hibernation accidents can ever happen?
Are there any scientific papers or experiments where different Testudo species where kept without hibernation over years?
I didn't even bother opening a thread like this in a german tortoise forum because I'd just get spammed and insulted to death and apparently there are some crazy german tortoise owners that would literally kill you if they found out you didn't hibernate your Testudo tortoise.
Hoping for a few answers!