Russian tortoise self-hibernating, should I wake him up?

[abbydaniel75]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and owning a Russian tortoise. I live in Minnesota and have an indoor enclosure for my tortoise. We've had unusually warm temps for October (80s) and in the past few days they just dipped down to normal fall temps. Yesterday my tortoise didn't come out at all, when for the whole month before he came out every day to eat, be active, etc. I know this inactivity is linked to our outside weather cooling, the indoor enclosure has maintained good tortoise temps and humidity. My only concern if he is hibernating himself is that I haven't cleared out his bowels of food from the previous few days. I'm wondering if I should wake him up to bathe him and let him clear out his system, then let him go back into hibernation if he wants. I am not comfortable or experienced enough to induce hibernation, but I'm ok if he wants to do that naturally by himself, just want to make sure nothing weird happens inside his body with leftover food.

 

[Tom]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and owning a Russian tortoise. I live in Minnesota and have an indoor enclosure for my tortoise. We've had unusually warm temps for October (80s) and in the past few days they just dipped down to normal fall temps. Yesterday my tortoise didn't come out at all, when for the whole month before he came out every day to eat, be active, etc. I know this inactivity is linked to our outside weather cooling, the indoor enclosure has maintained good tortoise temps and humidity. My only concern if he is hibernating himself is that I haven't cleared out his bowels of food from the previous few days. I'm wondering if I should wake him up to bathe him and let him clear out his system, then let him go back into hibernation if he wants. I am not comfortable or experienced enough to induce hibernation, but I'm ok if he wants to do that naturally by himself, just want to make sure nothing weird happens inside his body with leftover food.

Yes. Wake him up.

Welcome to the forum. I have three threads you need 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

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

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

These will catch you up to speed with the current and correct care info. Questions and conversation are welcome!