Advice on NOT hibernating

[16 shells]

Andy, good point, i have never seen a Rat in the garden, not to say their not there, that has changed my mind.
Paul

[dugy]

i heard a good suggestion which invloved burying a large metal dustbin in the ground filled with topsoil and covered over with mesh.. obviously the torty can still bury under although is limited....


my adivise (although may be wrong!!) would be that if you are overwintering i would get the tortoises in very soon and start the overwintering routine (like the hours of light) just to get them sorted as naturally some torts will be winding down in a few weeks time...

[tartaruga amore]

feed as normal, i provide very low heat on a night, with ceramic bulb { because they are in a conservatory,}
mine never slow down or eat less they just act as normal, but sometimes get a bit grumpy if they cant go out
ok their day is a little shorter, and your electric bills are higher, but they will stay active if you provide heat and light

[Alan1]

I don't know about the bin dugy it would fill up with water and they would drown, unless it was like under cover somewhere

[dugy]

ahh good point... maybe a tarpauline cover just above it like a shelf above.. to stop rain gettin in although still providing a good air flow?

[Alan1]

maybe a bin in a garage or cold shed?

[dugy]

yeah a good suggestion.. obviously a good recording of temps will be needed.... the bin could... maybe be moved if needed.... i think.. if you were really carefull and quite!!!.....

[16 shells]

Originally Posted by caledonia

maybe a bin in a garage or cold shed?

There was a post on, a large tall box, similar too a plastic toy box, filled with topsoil, in a shed, for hibernating, tort's go through the digging motion, even when in hibernation, this is there magic, going lower when temps drop, higher when temps rise. Might try the box/soil method, as Duggy said, could alway's add more insulation to the outside of the box, as in sheets, old towels, box in a box. I had to do similar last year, as temps fluctuated, it was not such a bad deal.
Paul

[Ozric Jonathan]

I'm interested in trying to make hibernation more natural for mine, but I'm worried about both rats and the waterlogged ground issues.

In addition to that I considered the hibernation under a coldframe idea, but the problem with this is those days when its sunny and maybe 13C during winter. Inside a coldframe the temperature will shoot up to over 20C and this will affect the tortoise possibly waking him up or possibly confusing him when the next day its very cold again.

The coldframe would need to be in deep shade and the hibernation area under it would need to be very carefully prepared with a steel mesh container and a lot of hardcore underneath for drainage. I would also want to remotely measure the temperature of the substrate so that if the temperature there rose too much I could throw on heaps of ice from my freezer. All of this sounds very complicated compared to the fridge method.

In nature some hermann tortoises emerge from hibernation when its warm enough for a day and they bask and even feed, then return to hibernation when temps go down again. This seems counter to the idea that on waking from hibernation there is a rush of stored energy (glycogen) that cannot be replaced except over a very long period of time. However, these animals are in nature and doing all kinds of things we might think impossible based on our very incomplete understanding of how they survive. If a tortoise attempted such things in a back garden in the west of scotland then only a tradegy could happen because human intervention is necessary to their survival outside their range.

So although I'm very attracted to more natural methods of hibernation I'm going to stick with my fridge at the moment because I have total control over what goes on in there (excluding power cuts and suchlike).

[Alan1]

I once visited Mitchellstown Cave in Ireland on a scorching hot day and inside it was very cool and Margaret the lovely guide informed me that it was the same temps in there all the year round no matter what it was outside. Now a cave would be an extremely handy thing to have in your back garden