Young tortoises wintering help

[mahoanth]

Hi Everyone,

We recently bought two Testudo Marginated tortoises (one year old) - I have done so much research online and my head is fit to bursting on
so many different things/slightly panicking and not wanting to accidentally kill my tortoises.

I really just need some straight advice on whether to hibernate/or not.

My questions are
- Are they too young and should i wait until they are between 2-3 as some suggest, they are still very small and I don't want the loss of body weight to starve them.
- They currently have a mix of UVA/UVB light throughout the day (approximately 9 hours as told by the breeder, but now i am starting to think that is too little from what i have read). How would i reduce this light (stages/time periods etc) and also when to stop feeding/ if at all?.

Basically I have a lot of questions and would love to have a 10 minute conversation over the phone or something - I know its a bit of a weird request and this may not be the right forum to request this, but if anyone can please assist, we would be very grateful.

Thanks
Anthony

 

[Tom]

Hi Everyone,

We recently bought two Testudo Marginated tortoises (one year old) - I have done so much research online and my head is fit to bursting on
so many different things/slightly panicking and not wanting to accidentally kill my tortoises.

I really just need some straight advice on whether to hibernate/or not.

My questions are
- Are they too young and should i wait until they are between 2-3 as some suggest, they are still very small and I don't want the loss of body weight to starve them.
- They currently have a mix of UVA/UVB light throughout the day (approximately 9 hours as told by the breeder, but now i am starting to think that is too little from what i have read). How would i reduce this light (stages/time periods etc) and also when to stop feeding/ if at all?.

Basically I have a lot of questions and would love to have a 10 minute conversation over the phone or something - I know its a bit of a weird request and this may not be the right forum to request this, but if anyone can please assist, we would be very grateful.

Thanks
Anthony

Hi Anthony. Most people do not brumate marginated tortoises at all. The area they come from stays pretty warm.

First and foremost, you need to separate them. Tortoises should never live in pairs and Margies are pretty bad about this.

Second, most tortoise care info out in the world is old, out-dated, and just plain wrong. The same wrong info is continually repeated everywhere, even from books, vets and breeders. Here is the correct care info:

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

Questions are welcome.

 

[MarginatedMooney]

I definitely wouldn't try to hibernate them when they're that small.
This is the third fall for my Marginated, and he hasn't seemed to slow down at all yet, so I haven't tried to hibernate him and I don't think I will in the future.

What kind of UVA/UVB light are you using? It's best to have a heat lamp and a HO T5 fluorescent tube light strip for UV.