Emma25
New Member
Hello, this is my first post on the forum. We have a Horsfield tortoise who we are hibernating for the first time since we got her, she is about 6 years old and we don't know if the previous owners hibernated her. We have been weighing and measuring her since August/September and although I don't have the exact numbers with me now she was well within the weight ratio to be prepared for hibernation - in fact she was slightly over weight!
She really seemed to slow down during September and wasn't eating as much even if food was there. We made the decision to start her wind down last week and it is a week today since she last ate, she has done a poo yesterday and also had a small wee. We are bathing her daily which she enjoys and she is drinking water sometimes.
Her current basking temperature is around 22/24 and on an evening when her lights are turned off it is dropping down to about 14 to 15 in the part of the house where we keep her. For the most part she is falling asleep under her lamp until we switch it off and then she is going into the sheltered part of her hide and really burrowing herself down. My concern was that yesterday and Monday she moved around her pen as if she was looking for food and was hungry (she probably looked around for 2 or 3 minutes then settled back down to sleep)
We are going to reduce the time her lamp is on to shorten her days over the next week, and also move the lamp higher up to gradually bring down the temperature.
We live in England and during the summer we kept her outside as much as possible in an enclosure and if were able to supervise she wandered the garden but we brought her in on an evening. She loves being outside and we would like her to hibernate as we don't want her to be stuck in an indoor table tortoise until our weather starts to warm back up again (which could be months!) and also we felt she was showing signs of wanting to hibernate.
She is such a lovely and gentle natured tortoise and I feel so guilty for not feeding her, I want to make sure that we are doing the right thing for her. Our plan is to keep winding her down till mid November time and then put her in box hibernation (she will be in our garage) we have thermometers set up and have been testing them so we can make sure the right temps are kept for her.
Any help or advice welcome, we are feeling so worried and anxious about it all.
Thank you for reading, Emma
She really seemed to slow down during September and wasn't eating as much even if food was there. We made the decision to start her wind down last week and it is a week today since she last ate, she has done a poo yesterday and also had a small wee. We are bathing her daily which she enjoys and she is drinking water sometimes.
Her current basking temperature is around 22/24 and on an evening when her lights are turned off it is dropping down to about 14 to 15 in the part of the house where we keep her. For the most part she is falling asleep under her lamp until we switch it off and then she is going into the sheltered part of her hide and really burrowing herself down. My concern was that yesterday and Monday she moved around her pen as if she was looking for food and was hungry (she probably looked around for 2 or 3 minutes then settled back down to sleep)
We are going to reduce the time her lamp is on to shorten her days over the next week, and also move the lamp higher up to gradually bring down the temperature.
We live in England and during the summer we kept her outside as much as possible in an enclosure and if were able to supervise she wandered the garden but we brought her in on an evening. She loves being outside and we would like her to hibernate as we don't want her to be stuck in an indoor table tortoise until our weather starts to warm back up again (which could be months!) and also we felt she was showing signs of wanting to hibernate.
She is such a lovely and gentle natured tortoise and I feel so guilty for not feeding her, I want to make sure that we are doing the right thing for her. Our plan is to keep winding her down till mid November time and then put her in box hibernation (she will be in our garage) we have thermometers set up and have been testing them so we can make sure the right temps are kept for her.
Any help or advice welcome, we are feeling so worried and anxious about it all.
Thank you for reading, Emma
