winter 2024-5

[Yvonne G]

thank you Yvonne, i'm not sure who, if anyone, is interested, but i am ......... i been doing this for awhile and there seems to always be something different year to year....... if everybody comes out this year OK, i will take away a couple things from this one too......

Yvonne , a question for you about your pond turtles in your winter, do they eat? if not from when to when don't they eat? you still have a sideneck in your pond? how does it handle your winter?

No, they don't eat. From about the end of October to around April. When we have a 'normal' winter with many, many overcast days (no sun) I don't ever see them above water. Bit it's been so sunny so far this winter I see them almost every day on the bank. I tossed some trout chow at them yesterday and they ignored it.

The Argentine sideneck went to live in San Diego at James Terrell's place last summer, but when she lived here she never came up until spring.

 

[Fluffy]

I find all of this very interesting. Please keep posting your findings.

 

[Paschendale52]

Here is Albuquerque, mine are about the same as Yvonne's. No food from late Oct - early April or so. If you try to feed them they ignore it. I have never seen one out of the water during that period either. I have had to rescue them once or twice in the turtles first two winters, but nothing so far this year. The times I've had to rescue them, it was turtles who were ~5 years old and this was their first year outside for a winter. They were upside down in ~2' of water in the winter and I found them, scooped them out, and brought them into the heated indoor aquarium. No ill effects long term. I'm hoping I don't have to do the same this year.

 

[mark1]

two days ago it was 42F and sunny .....it's 3F right now , tomorrow is supposed to be 1F, wednesday is supposed to be -8F, we may get above freezing next week........

river temp here

pond temps

ground temp at 4"

box turtles

 

[Markw84]

Mark; I love these threads as well. As you know I had a large 10,000 gal pond with 12 different species. Climate like Yvonne's - Ocassional overnight freeze to maybe 29° but nothing that would freeze the pond. Daytime highs would bounce from 45° to 65°. Water temp was 42° lowest. Normally stayed in the 50° - 44° - 50° water temperature range Nov - Jan - early Mar.

The turtles stopped wanting food by late October. Would mostly lay at the bottom (36" deep) for the basking turtles, and the spotted turtles and musk turtles found places in the root balls of aquatic plants in the portion of the pond they chose to stay in that was only 12" at deepest point. All showed no interest in food until mid to late March. They would occasionally crawl out to bask on the warmer/sunny days in any month, then drop back to the bottom to remain motionless for weeks or more.

True to the nature of burmation, there were periods of semi-activity, not a wakeless sleep for 4 months. Never an interest in food until the sun reached about 35° and could better penetrate the water, not simply be reflected by a narrower angle. This routine seemed more controlled by sun angle and photoperiod than by temperatures. The timeline barely changing on their interest in food even when we had unusually warm fall or spring temperatures that would have seemed to delay or shorten their brumation.

 

[mark1]

True to the nature of burmation, there were periods of semi-activity, not a wakeless sleep for 4 months. Never an interest in food until the sun reached about 35° and could better penetrate the water, not simply be reflected by a narrower angle. This routine seemed more controlled by sun angle and photoperiod than by temperatures. The timeline barely changing on their interest in food even when we had unusually warm fall or spring temperatures that would have seemed to delay or shorten their brumation.

the sun angle makes sense........ temp would be the first thing one would think, until you see some eat in the spring on a sunny day in the 40's, and not eat on a 60-70F week in november......

1F today, forecast -8 tomorrow........ i believe a large portion of the country is getting this ....

 

[Yvonne G]

Sun angle was not something I considered, but it should have dawned on me. I have solar panels on my roof and I read the kw hours produced each evening. In winter, because of the sun's angle on the panels, my kw hours produced is quite a bit less than during summer when the sun is directly overhead. Stands to reason this also affects the turtles.

 

[mark1]

sunlight, specifically certain wavelengths affect hormones, through vision ....... the spectrum of sunlight is affected by angle and distance....... these guys are especially attuned to light.. you read the studies and honestly no one is sure what triggers the cessation or initiation of feeding .... makes sense to me .....

 

[Markw84]

sunlight, specifically certain wavelengths affect hormones, through vision ....... the spectrum of sunlight is affected by angle and distance....... these guys are especially attuned to light.. you read the studies and honestly no one is sure what triggers the cessation or initiation of feeding .... makes sense to me .....

Sun angle is not just affecting intensity of light, but as you mention different wavelengths are more affected. UV levels drop dramatically with decreased sun level. UVA is certainly a trigger for cycles/activity/"wellness". Intensity is important as well, though. Many folks come here wondering why their temperate tortoise is so inactive and wants to sleep. Most folks dramatically under-light enclosures! Many, many times I hear back from people who bought a smart enclosure from me and cannot believe how active their tortoise now is. Heat and humidity control is important, but I have come to believe the light intensity is the key trigger to activity.

 

[TammyJ]

Is intensity the same as brightness level?

 

[Markw84]

Is intensity the same as brightness level?

For what we are talking about here - yes.

 

[mark1]

pretty cold january, we are 8 degrees below the normal averge..


ground temperatures at 4"

ground surface temp under the leaf pile, felt like i was touching the ground, as far as i could reach down over the fence.....

we got above 32F today for the 5th time this month

-6F wednesday

32F and sunny today

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

pretty cold january, we are 8 degrees below the normal averge..


ground temperatures at 4"

ground surface temp under the leaf pile, felt like i was touching the ground, as far as i could reach down over the fence.....

we got above 32F today for the 5th time this month

-6F wednesday

32F and sunny today

What kind of trees do you have around the pond?

 

[mark1]

the ones i know for sure would be oak, walnut, magnolia, mulberry, and maple , there are 2 kinds of pine trees, and some giant arborvitae

next spring i'm planning on there being a lot less......

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

the ones i know for sure would be oak, walnut, magnolia, mulberry, and maple , there are 2 kinds of pine trees, and some giant arborvitae

next spring i'm planning on there being a lot less......

Yeah, I have always thought that there has to be a fine line between too much sunlight vs too much litter from the trees in the pond. Not turtle related my mom is planning a wild life pond on her property.

 

[mark1]

February 1rst,

the ground was frozen here from jan 3rd thru jan 31rst

 

[mark1]

think this is what they call the "dead of winter"...... the ground has been frozen for the last 6 weeks... this week they're forecasting 15,6, 6, 12, and 14F....little colder winter than usual

 

[Paschendale52]

How much higher is your electricity bill in the winter running those stock tank heaters? I put one in the pond here in Albuquerque and didn't realize that they drew 14 amps continuously. It was a couple of weekends of running them before I noticed, we had about $100 extra on the bill that month. Now I just use an air bubbler to keep the surface from freezing and its much cheaper.

 

[mark1]

How much higher is your electricity bill in the winter running those stock tank heaters?

my electric bill is crazy without the de-icers..... i'd guess $150 when i run them all month..... starting tomorrow night i'll be running 9 of them for a couple days, they're 250watts each........ i believe our air temps are too low to be mixing air into the water, when we have a serious cold spell i'll put the pump output hose directly in the pond to keep it from mixing the air with the water....... most winters i only need them for about 8 weeks, this year is colder than usual.....

 

[mark1]

today we are above freezing, i'm guessing we'll get above freezing most everyday from here on out...... i pulled the tarp off the box turtles today..... i put it on because we were getting around 0 degrees without snow cover, then we got snow dumped on us, so i left it.......... as long as it's warm out it'll warm up faster without the tarp or snow on it..... we're expecting a 50 and rain next week.....

below is the ground temperatures in fahrenheit here, at 4", for the last 2 months, blue line.... at one point in january we were averaging 8 degrees below normal, air temp, normal being 29F... we finished the month 5 degrees below normal.......