My horsfield wants to hibernate! Please help
 

Hi
I have had my horsfield for 6 years since he was a baby. I will hold my hand up and admit I never knew they were quite as challenging to look after but regardless I have stuck with him and he is a lovely wee guy.

Over the last few years he has spent April-oct living in the garden. He has a 6x4 foot run, which is lined with chicken wire 4 foot deep, with a small dog kennel with internal heat mat and basking lamp. He has an abundance of wild flowers and dandelion weeds to keep him nourished over spring and summer.
As the garden is completely enclosed and he doesn't seem to dig much we made a door in the run so he can access all the garden all day and night (but also with the open of shutting him in there when away overnight etc). In winter we were bringing him in and keeping him in a 6x4 tort table - which sadly he doesn't like that much.

I was just talking to my hubby about whether to hibernate him or not and when we went out to see him he has taken to burying under a flat slab (he has ventilation). My husband wants me to leave him and just check on him periodically as he feels wild tortoises know what they are doing!

Can anyone advise - I live in east Scotland where it can get very cold so maybe I should use hibernation box etc. Another owner I know just let's her tortoise do his own thing and he is a very old torty (Hermanns I think). He just buries himself in he garden and crawls out in spring! All other horsfields I know are kept indoors all year with heat lamps etc.

Any advice?

Colder nights and shorter days are triggers for hibernation wind down, so it's not surprising he wants to start winding down, if you want to stop this you will need to get him indoors under a basking spot for 12 hours a day, and put him out if the day warms up, I expect it's not warm up there. It's still summer down here and mine are all slowing down. Horsfields are natural diggers so I would give him some deep soil to dig into, they also have very long hibernation in the wild. If you want to hibernate him, I wouldn't let him dig himself down in the garden up in Scotland . You will need provide either, a cool part of the house ( un heated ) or an insulated shed with electrics , a tube heater on a thermostat set at 6c or a fridge , indoors at room temperature, set to 6c. Hope this helps

I think in the wild they can dig down pretty deep in order to find a stable temp through the winter, probably below the frost level they also vary the depth according to the soil temp. In a garden I doubt this would be possible unless you have a couple of foot of diggable soil, you'd also need a well sheltered garden and one that doesn't flood, to be honest its not a risk I'd take. I did try using the gh for my adult Ibera to hibernate in once but it didn't work, despite it having a soil base and a depth of a couple of foot we found that the weather was to unpredictable. When the sun came out they obviously felt the heat and would come to the surface only to be caught out when it got cold again we were constantly burying cold torts and gave up in the end and boxed them as normal. I think our winters are to varying and we might have long spells of either to warm/wet or cold but not enough consistantly cold at least thats what I think. A controled enviroment hibernation is far safer.

I agree with ann, horsfields certainly don't take cold and wet together, without health problems
I have not had in over 18years had any problems hibernating my Iberas in the greenhouse soil. They choose when it's cold enough for them to hibernate. They all go down at different times. Even on the warmest days they stay down, as the garden soil has to warm up as a whole before the tortoises even start to warm up. And it's not warm enough long enough for garden soil to warm up.
Once garden soil des start to get warmer you can gradually see the soil begin to move. If we have a sudden cold snap they stay down.

I think our main prob with using the gh was that it wasn't shaded and got the full sun I also think that it just didn't get cold enough when they were ready to hibernate. My adults would be looking to go around october and that year when we did try the gh it was still far to warm. We dug the gh base which was soil and sand down to a couple of feet in one corner then literally buried the sleepy torts after dark, we then piled the soil up followed by cardboard on the top, the thermometers showed the soil down where they were was around 6c but the following morning they were sitting on the top. We tried this several times and sometimes it would go a few days but as soon as the sun came out up they'd come. I worried as they weren't eating drinking etc that they would become dehydrated etc so we gave up and boxed them, I don't know what else we could have done. Once the sun went in the torts became to cold to actively dig down and would just sleep on the top they were never really active during this time and would just sit on the top of the soil. As soon as we boxed them and put them in the brick shed they were fine and never moved, the shed was always cold even in the summer and had a low watt heater on a thermostat it was easy to keep it the right temp.

My greenhouses are both in full sun. Once the tortoises are down they don't come back up until the soil warms up.
As I have said they go down when they are ready, once the days are short.
I won't feed mine once we get to mid October (depending on the temps outside),
They can graze if they choose. But at the end of October, they are not let out, and dig down once they are ready.
Some can go down two weeks before the others. I have one male who hangs on and on, so I block out all light to him, and he goes down.
This year for the first time my three and four year olds will do the same:0)

wee update - my tort is still buried under the slab in his enclosure so hasn't eaten for around 5 weeks now. the weather has turned this weekend and we are now experiencing good old Scottish rain, wind and single figures temps!

I have bought a couple of extra thermometers and one probe along with a large tub. I will fill it sand/soil mix and put him in garage where it has stayed consistently cooler than the house. I have drawn up a temp chart so will keep an eye on min/max temp, digging activity and weight.

How often - if at all - do you weigh and check your torts during hibernation?

My adult horsfields I weigh just before they go in the fridge, then check on them once a week :) x

Mine dig down in the GH soil, so don't get weighed at all. I just make sure I monitor them all year round, any problems and I would not let them dig down.
If I were to box them up, I would weigh them once a month as I would normally. But check for urination or runny noses once a fortnight.

A word of caution! My 7 yr. old used to hibernate in a washing-up bowl in a pit dug in the greenhouse (to keep the temperature down). It was covered with a polystyrene block. One weekend in the middle of winter after heavy rain I found the pit full of water. Luckily Pushkin was inside his floating bowl, which had even lifted the polystyrene a couple of inches. Noah's Ark springs to mind.

Please can you advise me. I thought adults Horsfields hibernate for 12 weeks max. He wants to hibernate now, but that would mean waking him in early January in the depths of winter. For that reason I struggle to keep him awake till late November. What is best?

Rupert, Essex