SoCal Gopherus first hibernation questions

[animateash]

We adopted our 30yr old CA desert tortoise in May, so his first hibernation with us is coming up. He's 30-something years old, so one might argue HE knows what he's doing, but I just want to make sure everything is a go.

He have noted that as the weather is getting cooler, he is slower to come out of his house and has not been as voracious of an eater. He even turns down favorites about 50% of the time, just seeming not hungry. He is still eating something while we're at work because I am still finding poop pretty much daily.

As a nervous new tortoise mom, I have some questions. I want to make sure we prepare him for hibernation properly.

Is the slowing of food intake normal considering the temp drop? Is there anything we can offer or should be doing to encourage more eating so he has adequate reserves?

He has a custom built wooden (waterproofed) tortoise house, long and low like a burrow, with a door that latches o he can be secured at night. The tortoise society we got him from said that we can give him crumpled/ shredded newspaper as nesting material in there, and to just be sure the house stays pretty dry. Once he goes to bed our plan is to move the house closer to our main structure where we know rain does not gather. We were not planning to put him in the garage since the house already latches closed so he'd be undisturbed. Does that sound adequate?

Should I open his door once a week to check on him? Or daily?

Any other tips are most welcome. Thanks in advance from myself and Bobo.

 

[orv]

I do make a few changes in my tortoise care as fall approaches. First of all, CDTs are private creatures and don't appreciate or need frequent checks during the day; enjoy them from afar. This time of year I back off the feeding of fruits (cactus pears, strawberries and such), and increase my feeding of squashes, such as pumpkin. The goal is to clear out the intestinal tract and prevent fermentation during hibernating. The weeds and grasses I leave on their buffet for feeding as desired. We live in the Southern California High Desert, near Aguanga. Our tortoises are spending a good deal of the day out sunning themselves and wandering around their enclosure. On warm days they eat well, on cooler days when the temperatures only reach the low to mid 70's, they eat less. They continue to make adjustments to their winter abode which is deeper than I can reach with the length of my are and a rake. They'll be cool and dry for the winter.
To prevent flooding during the infrequent winter storms, we enclose their opening. This keeps out the possible predators as well.

 

[animateash]

Interesting about the pumpkin. I offer squash leaves and zucchini, but haven't tried regular pumpkin yet. He definitely has access to all the weeds and grass he wants, we've just noticed he doesn't really want as much as he did this summer (when he would just destroy entire branches of hibiscus leaves.

We do mostly leave him alone to do his own thing. My question about daily checks was in reference to when he's hibernating only.

Sounds like our housing checks out fine. As I mentioned, we do have a much that he goes in every night that has a latching door.

 

[Tom]

This is a subject of much debate. I've been hibernating DTs for a long time and the problem we have here in SoCal in winter is that the weather is too inconsistent above ground. We have 80 degree day in January and sometimes night temps dip into the 20's depending on where you are.

DTs hibernate best at a consistent 49-50 degrees. All the fluctuation is bad for them and when left outside, subject to the whims of mother nature, many of them die. This creates superstitions about hibernation being "bad" for them, or that it is some sort of mysterious cosmic process that is difficult to understand. They simply need consistently cool temps, and this is impossible to offer in an above ground outdoor enclosure in our climate.

The simple solution? Use a fridge. Set the thermostat to hold the temp around 50 and adjust as needed. Let the tortoise go through fall outside, and do its thing, and when the temps really drop in November and the tortoise ceases all activity, bring him inside to the fridge. When temps warm up in spring and it looks like the 10 day forecast will be warm and sunny, put him back outside in his burrow or house, but monitor temps and activity. Its a good idea to soak frequently going in to hibernation and as they come out of hibernation. For that matter, its a good idea to soak two or three times a week in summer too! Using the fridge and keeping him indoor will protect him from rodents, ants, spiders, temperature extremes, predators, flooding, and anything else that could kill him outside while he slumbers.

Give it some thought. Ask lots of questions. We'll help you sort it all out.

 

[orv]

TOM: our CDTs have their burrow about 3 ft below the yard surface as well as at least 6 to 7' long. We have VERY few winter nights that fall below freezing, with most of those warming to at least 60 degrees by mid day. I haven't done any soaking of them during cool weather. As adults, their soaking have been in the garden sprinkler. I suppose that my rational is that they are living in what is very close to their natural, native habitat. I realize that our experience with CDTs has been positive for over 60 years and that this may not be under conditions similar to that of yourself.

 

[orv]

TOM: I just wanted you to know that their summer burrow maintains a fairly moist condition at its depth of over 3 ft.

 

[Tom]

TOM: our CDTs have their burrow about 3 ft below the yard surface as well as at least 6 to 7' long. We have VERY few winter nights that fall below freezing, with most of those warming to at least 60 degrees by mid day. I haven't done any soaking of them during cool weather. As adults, their soaking have been in the garden sprinkler. I suppose that my rational is that they are living in what is very close to their natural, native habitat. I realize that our experience with CDTs has been positive for over 60 years and that this may not be under conditions similar to that of yourself.

I love that what you are doing there is working for you, but what I want you to realize is that just like the guy that has used a soil/sand mixture as a substrate for decades and hash't had a problem, your experience there is not the same thing that happens everywhere, all the time.

I'm known as the tortoise guy in my area. I talk about tortoise in my daily life even more than I do here. My wife has been in the veterinary profession in one capacity or another for decades and we know a lot of veterinarians in this part of the world. Those vets talk to me about their tortoise cases both because we are friends, and because many of them are animal nerds and enjoy sharing a case with someone who "gets it" and can relate. When I tell a "regular" person that I just got my first platynota eggs, I get a blank stare. When I tell another tortoise nerd, I get a proper enthusiastic reaction. Same thing for the vets I know. Their eyes get all big and : "Hey Tom! I had this impacted tortoise come in and guess what I found inside…". My job with animals also has me traveling all over the country and all over the world and working with even more veterinarians. I see a wide variety of tortoise cases from a wide variety of climates and care routines.

Having said all of that, I've seem a lot of tortoises die from people trying to hibernate them "naturally" outside. I've seen flooded burrows, collapsed burrows, rodent damage, ant attack, I've seen them come up and eat during a mid winter warm spell and then die when that food rots in their gut as the temp drops back down to normal winter temps, I've seen them use up their energy reserves because it was simply too warm, I've seen their eyeballs freeze on a cold night because the burrow was just a little too shallow or because they were just a little too close to the burrow entrance… In short, I would never leave a temperate species of tortoise outside all winter subjected to the cruel whims of mother nature. You and many other people take that gamble and get away with it right up until the day you don't get away with it… and then your tortoise pays the price for your gamble.

I would never leave a tortoise to hibernate outside in our climate. Too risky for a wide variety of valid reasons. I've seen it end in tragedy too many times. One of my best friends and first members of this site lost his fist DT this way. Burrow flooded and collapsed. He found his tortoise dead, buried in the mud.

 

[Yvonne G]

It is my understanding that the area where you live used to be the natural habitat for desert tortoises, so it's probably ok if you allow your new tortoise to hibernate in the burrow. But everything Tom has spoken about is quite valid and definitely would be a concern. I DON'T live in your area, and I don't think the desert tortoise was ever native to my area here in Central California. I would never allow my tortoises to hibernate in a burrow. (Orv, I'm speaking to the OP here)

The way your tortoise society has given you good info. This is also the way I hibernate my desert tortoises. Their 'house' is under a mulberry tree in dense shade. Even with the leaves off the tree in winter, the house if fairly protected by all the branches. The house is up on cement, so not at ground level. When the leaves start to fall I rake them all up and dump them on the tortoise house. By the end of Autumn the house is completely covered and there is no worry about the inside freezing.

What you want to be careful of for hibernating tortoises is keeping them dry and not allowing them to freeze.

 

[Markie Ross]

This is a subject of much debate. I've been hibernating DTs for a long time and the problem we have here in SoCal in winter is that the weather is too inconsistent above ground. We have 80 degree day in January and sometimes night temps dip into the 20's depending on where you are.

DTs hibernate best at a consistent 49-50 degrees. All the fluctuation is bad for them and when left outside, subject to the whims of mother nature, many of them die. This creates superstitions about hibernation being "bad" for them, or that it is some sort of mysterious cosmic process that is difficult to understand. They simply need consistently cool temps, and this is impossible to offer in an above ground outdoor enclosure in our climate.

The simple solution? Use a fridge. Set the thermostat to hold the temp around 50 and adjust as needed. Let the tortoise go through fall outside, and do its thing, and when the temps really drop in November and the tortoise ceases all activity, bring him inside to the fridge. When temps warm up in spring and it looks like the 10 day forecast will be warm and sunny, put him back outside in his burrow or house, but monitor temps and activity. Its a good idea to soak frequently going in to hibernation and as they come out of hibernation. For that matter, its a good idea to soak two or three times a week in summer too! Using the fridge and keeping him indoor will protect him from rodents, ants, spiders, temperature extremes, predators, flooding, and anything else that could kill him outside while he slumbers.

Give it some thought. Ask lots of questions. We'll help you sort it all out.

Wow! I’d love to hear more about the fridge idea. How do they breath?

 

[Tom]

Wow! I’d love to hear more about the fridge idea. How do they breath?

Fridges are not air tight, and a hibernating reptile at 50 degrees needs very little oxygen. Just opening the door once in a while to check on the tortoise is enough. I was hibernating 20 russians in my regular sized garage fridge and never had any problem.

 

[tglazie]

50 degrees, Tom? That's fascinating. I've never had much luck with 50. I've brumated other European Testudo (Middle Eastern Greeks, Eastern Hermanns, Russians, and Margies, of course), and I've always kept it between forty and forty five. At fifty, mine move around quite a bit. At forty to forty five, they still move around, but not as much, I find. But at fifty, they move a little every day. I used to do it this way with Graecus, after I convinced my old man that it wasn't the death sentence he thought it would be. That was one heck of an impassioned argument. It took me years to convince my pops to keep the darned torts outdoors, which it turns out we were both wrong on that count, it really isn't that simple, but such was what the books were saying back then. Anywho, I did most of my brumation experiments with Graecus. Back then, I had this conventional black Maytag fridge that I would set to fifty. When I put Graecus under after keeping him in the garage on newsprint in our old rented house, he was fairly dehydrated, and he would move around in the big clear rubbermaid tub full of leaves. That poor fellow was pretty tough to withstand my early bumblings. Anywho, this is why I started using the lower temps, given that I was afraid Graecus was using too much energy. Also interesting is that not all of mine move as much as others during the fridge session, even with the lower temps. My biggest, Big Gino, moves the most, especially during the first week, followed by Little Gino. Interestingly, one of Chris' that I raised up, Joey, didn't really move at all last year, and all of my bigger ladies, Lady Gino and Margie typically stay put. I'm curious to see what two of Gary B's gals, Biggins and Whitins, do this year when I put them in the fridge for the first time.

But yes, I agree completely with what Tom is saying here about fridge brumation. Get yourself a fridge right now. Don't get a mini fridge or a dorm cooler. Those are too small. You want something at least the size of a conventional fridge; remember that temperature stability is the key. Commercial drink coolers or restaurant reach in fridges are best, but not everyone lives near restaurants or minimarts going out of business, so a conventional fridge will work. You can find these being sold on Craigslist for one to two hundred bucks. Make sure it isn't old. We all want a deal, but you need to be sure the fridge you're getting is going to be reliable, and an older one is much less likely to be so. Get the thing set up well before you have to use it, and monitor the temps in the thing, adjusting it as needed. Get to know the thermostat, how to tweek it, measuring it with a digital thermometer placed inside and a temp gun to get some definitive ideas about temp stability. Once you've gotten it where you want it, get a big rubbermaid tub. I drill holes on the sides, four on each side a few inches apart, but you can drill the top if that makes you more comfortable. I stack my tortoises in my fridge, so holes on the top would obviously be counterproductive. You can fill it with anything that they can bury themselves in, to be honest. I use peat moss that I allow to cure over the summer in an open garden bed, though I've also used topsoil tossed with leaf litter in the past to the same effect. I've never used coco coir, though I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has.

This whole process is a bit involved in the lead up. Perhaps I need to write this up and make it it's own thread, seeing as how I'm often selling this method. Anywho, I don't allow my margies to get too settled into the idea of winter's approach. What I mean by this is that any night that drops into the fifties, I bring them indoors, into an indoor enclosure. If we suffer an autumn rain where the temps drop into the wet sixties or lower, I bring them indoors, fire up the lights on a series of indoor enclosures, and keep them awake. Winters here in South Texas are short, often warm, and always unstable and entirely unpredictable. Eighties with twenty degree drop at night is not unusual, nor is eighties with a forty degree drop at night. As a result, I generally don't put them into brumation until late November/early December. As Tom mentioned, this may be different for you, given that we don't live in the same place. Regardless, once November has begun, I stop feeding my guys. They still go out on warm days, stay indoors on cooler days with a photoperiod to reflect the shortening day lengths, and I soak them at least once per day, twice on Saturdays and Sundays when I'm either off or closing my shop early. They usually have very little appetite at this point, though they may partake of late growth natural graze outdoors, but this isn't a common sight. Regardless, the constant soaking generally leaves them quite ready to empty themselves in preparation for the deep sleep.

At the month's end, I pick a day that is dry and sunny during the day and cold and dry in the evening, usually in the forties is good. These days are common in late November/early December, so I just pick my day, let them bed down outdoors at night. Between midnight and two in the morning, I venture out, place my hiding tortoises into their fridge tubs, weigh each tub and record the date and weight for each animal, and then I move them into the fridge, stacking each crate into the fridge. I then take the tubs out to weigh them once per week, looking for significant weight loss. If an animal loses more than five percent of it's weight, I bring that animal back to operating temps. However, I've only had to do this once, and it was with a Russian that I brumated in a mini fridge. Again, don't be an idiot like I was and use a mini fridge. Most tortoises lose a surprisingly small amount of weight during this whole process. They're really evolved to deal with these conditions.

As this will be your fella's first brumation, I wouldn't make it a long one. Four to six weeks for the first one should cover it, unless something goes wrong, in which case cut it short. Better safe than sorry. If things go well this first go around, push it to eight weeks next year, then twelve weeks the year after that. I always keep mine around twelve weeks. December, January, February. By February's end, the weather here in South Texas stops being so cool on/flame on, and the danger of sudden freezes is generally behind us. Don't get me wrong, we had a freeze in April back in 2014. I was furious. All the new growth on my mulberries died overnight, and a whole bunch of seedling chickory melted into the dirt. They came back three weeks later, but man, that was a drag. Anywho, off topic. When I pick the day for emergence, I choose a day that will be sunny but have a cool morning. I then take the tortoises outdoors before first light and place them in the opening of their sleeping quarters. All of my sleeping huts consist of night boxes with clear plastic flaps in the door way. I place them just behind the plastic flap. When the sun hits the entrance to that door way, the tortoise will slowly awaken. Most of them eventually walk out to greet the sun. I always like to put a glazed tortoise shell in Graecus' enclosure when he wakes up (long story, but my uncle brought back a glazed tortoise shell some street vendor was selling in Morocco, thinking I liked tortoises so, yeah). It's funny, given that Graecus is so pugnacious that he will attack that thing, thinking it's a tortoise. Even when he's weak from emergence from the hibernaculum, the fist thing that crosses his evil little mind is, "I've got to ram that tortoise that has invaded my territory." Sorry, off topic. Once their core temperature has stabilized by the day's end, I give them a long soak in luke warm water, refreshing the water continually over the course of an hour. Most of them are actually interested in eating by that point. I soak them every day for a half an hour for two weeks following emergence, and this generally ensures that they will enjoy themselves to the fullest extent in the coming spring.

Sorry for the long post, but there's a lot to this, and I'm not sure if I've covered everything. If you have any questions, just let me know. Where I live, you can't brumate a tortoise any way other than this, in my opinion. I've met so many people who have tried other forms of brumation with Russians and some of my baby margies, and they're often visited by tragedy. I can't stress enough how critical fridge hibernation is toward minimizing the mortal risks of doing otherwise. But I don't live in the land of California desert tortoises, and from what I understand, most people out that way go the natural way. To me, that's just never been feasible, and even if it was, I just wouldn't feel comfortable with it. I've made far too many stupid mistakes with tortoises to risk something like this, but that's a topic for another thread.

T.G.