Rick’s Experience with Hibernating

With Rick’s permission, I’m posting an email regarding hibernating turtles from his own experience: I don’t know. I think it must vary from species to species and I don’t know about dbts, or actually how much any other turtle really needs for that matter. I notice that it varies in the snakes and many of the southern US species, like corn snakes, may not even need a cooling at all. I have had problems with various turtles in the past, putting them out too late. I’ve put some outdoors even in the latter part of the summer or fall anyway, and had them not adjust to winter. The bulk of my outdoor colony spend the winter in a greenhouse – I cover their enclosure with 6 ml clear sheet plastic. It never freezes in there and I have to open the door on sunny days as the temperature will go over a 100 degrees. I noticed one winter that they were nibbling on vegetation and would eat goldfish that were swimming around, so I offered them trout chow through the winter. After a while, many of them developed swollen necks and legs. I was sure that I had some weird disease going through the colony. At the time I was also raising chameleons and read in one of the newsletters how they would develop edema, or water retention, particularly at the throats, from overdosing on vitamin A. I read the ingredients in trout chow, and of course it was made from fish (lots of vitamin A), soaked in fish oil (lots more vitamin A), and had vitamin A added!!! Normally animals can process extra vitamin A through, but I reasoned that the colder temps were not allowing them to process it on through. I stopped feeding and everything cleared up and I haven’t had that trouble since. That’s my two cents on feeding outdoors through our winter. As far as bringing turtles in during cold weather, I have lost turtles that I brought in and thrown in a tank right away. The water and air is pretty warm in my turtle room. Anyway, the 2 dbts I brought in a couple of weeks ago, I left in a bucket on the concrete floor (cool-chilly) for a few days, then moved them to a sweater box a few feet from a window but off the ground (coolish) and started feeding them, then moved them to a 70 gallong breeder with some others about the same size and made sure they were eating and looking ok. Now I’m watching them grow! -Rick Thanks, Rick for sharing your experiences on this topic – I must say I gleaned a few nuggets from this single post alone. – Chun