Advice needed quickly on waking up

[Seb from Paris]

When you think about it, temps would rise at times duing the hibernation period in the South of France as well. So yeah, it makes total sense.

The recommended humidity level that was given to me for a THH is 70%. Winters are quite damp down there. It's meant to prevent from dehydration, which is the problem with fridge hibernation, and therefore prevent from weight loss. Klaus lost one gramme in his first week, and since then, nothing at all.

[Ozric Jonathan]

Seb I would like to know how you got your humidity up there at 70% ? Not being good at science, someone tried to explain to me the difficulty air has in holding water in it when it is cold. I tried a bowl of water in the fridge, but it doesn't evaporate.

I didn't want to use a damp substrate.

[Seb from Paris]

Well, evaporation tends to be stronger in higher temperatures, that's right.

Why is it that you're not using damp substrate ? I use ground, which is what you find in nature. It's natural acidity prevents it from going rotten. If it's monitoring loss of fluids that you're worried about, weighing should enable that.

[Ozric Jonathan]

Seb I was using ground (soil and sand) too but I had it fairly dry as I just worried about a damp material being around the tortoise when it was sitting still for weeks on end.

I think my torts did loose fluids in hbernation because they both took huge drinks after waking and gained several grammes in the first few days.

By the way, did your tort Klaus go back to 'sleep' alright?

[Seb from Paris]

The ground is damp in nature too. I don't think it should cause a problem, but maybe you're right. Is it shell rot or RNS you're worried about ?

In French and German literature, dehydration is considered as the real negative aspect of fridge hibernation.

Maybe it's normal that they have a big drink when they wake up. Who doesn't ?

Klaus went back to sleep, I think. He hasn't lost any weight in the process (my scales seem to be locked on 72 grammes...), but he moved a bit more than usual when I lifted him up to weigh him. I'll see how it goes in a few days. As long as he doesn't loose weight he's fine: I remember how quickly he was loosing weight when I had stopped feeding him and was still semi active.

[Ozric Jonathan]

Hi Seb, I know the French are mainly not keen on the fridge for hibernation. In fact many think it is appalling that anyone would do this!

I don't know if a damp substrate can cause any problem in a fridge hibernation. It seemed to me possible that it might not be a good idea, thats all. But I agree that in the UK we don't seem to pay any attention to humidity in hibernation. I agree the ground would have some amount of dampnesss to it.

If Klaus has not lost any weight then I think he is doing well. Perhaps my juveniles lost weight due to having a very dry substrate. I need to think about that more.

[Seb from Paris]

Klaus is now very well after waking up on Friday. He was 73 grammes when he started hibernating on the 5th of January, and was 70 last Friday. He's already 74-75 again. I'm happy that his first hibernation went with such a minimal weight loss. He's already very active and hungry. The humidity level during his hibernation never went under 60%, but he still drank a lot as he woke up. There was a weight increase of 2 or 3 grammes between just before his first bath and just after.

I'm glad all went well.

[ME SHELL]

So glad it all went well Seb

[anna m]

Glad it went well

[Ozric Jonathan]

Good news for Klaus!