Views on hibernating

[Danling95]

A hibernates because it is cold, in the wild it has no choice in the matterm keeping it up is your choice. Keep it warm and provide light.

Thanks for the reply! Do you have any idea what would happen if I didn’t hibernate my tortoise? Or is it just a wait and see kind of thing? I know I should read into all before I purchased the tortoise but I don’t think I’d live with myself if my tortoise died due to hibernating :/

 

[JoesMum]

You are in the UK like me, so I can have a reasonable stab at what will happen.

The days will start to shorten in September and the weather will start to get cooler (in theory, but this is the UK and anything could happen! [emoji23])

Your tortoise will start to slow down, whether kept indoors or out, and will start to eat less.

At this point you have a decision to make: keep awake or hibernate.

The hibernation decision should only be made if you are certain that your tortoise is a healthy weight for its straight carapace length. Personally, as I said before, I don’t like to do it for a tort weighing less than 500g or in the first year of ownership. For a first hibernation keep it short and sweet. Rouse your tort after 4 weeks with warm temperatures and long soaks and keep him awake indoors for the rest of the winter.

The Jackson Ratio can be used for Greeks and Hermann’s tortoises weighing over 500g to calculate whether they are a healthy weight or not. Here is how to measure SCL http://www.tlady.clara.net/measure.htm



If your tort lives outdoors and you want to hibernate.: You can let him wind down naturally while living outdoors, but may need a supplementary basking lamp setup to allow him to bask as the weather closes in and/or you may need to bring your tort in at nights (see the link I gave you earlier)

If your tort lives indoors and you want to hibernate: Keep him going with bright lights and checking temperatures as long as you can. Then when you start the wind down, turn off the lights, keep the room cool, stop feeding and only soak your tortoise for a fortnight before boxing him up.

If your tort lives outdoors and you do not want to hibernate: Bring him in as soon as you see the behaviour change in the early autumn.

To keep the tort awake all winter:
Make sure the lighting is as bright as possible and on for 14 hours a day. Use a timer for the lights. You may need additional lights above what you would use the summer to create the brightness. However, be careful with temperatures especially at night. The extra lights can make it too hot by day. And your own home may be too cold at night. Night coldness is easily resolved using a Ceramic Heat Emitter with a thermostat as long as the enclosure is covered.

Your tortoise will still be less active in the winter months regardless of what you do, but should not be allowed to become completely inactive.

 

[B'hamer]

My hermanns live outside In Birmingham, AL and around Thanksgiving I gather them up and put ‘em In the vegetable bin in my fridge, where they stay until March. I’ve been doing this for about 20 years with no problems