Ella is hibernating...

[Justin90]

So I am in need of some FRIENDLY advice.

I didn't realize that there is a whole process before letting your tort hibernate. Ella started her own process around Christmas and has been in her den (indoor enclosure) since . She started to eat less, sleep for an entire day, wake up to eat a little and soak, then stay in her den longer and longer each time, until Christmas.

For a couple weeks we would hear her move around and build a wall of substrate at her den opening to close her self in. However, the past week or so we haven't heard anything, so I figured she is in her "deep sleep". I did take the lid off yesterday and poke her leg and she moved.

Her den is basically closed off, so it maintains a constant temp/conditions. I was reading on other threads, that if I wake her up from hibernation I either do nothing and let her go back to it, or I feed/soak her and I don't let her hibernate any more.

So my question is....Do I let her do her thing or do I wake her up? I've had her for just over a year now, shes about 5" long, healthy. She didn't hibernate last year.

 

[Yvonne G]

Tortoises have to have empty stomachs while brumating. If you wake her up and feed her, the food will rot in her digestive tract and she'll die. I never disturb my brumating tortoises. Some people wake them up and soak them, I don't.

 

[Justin90]

Tortoises have to have empty stomachs while brumating. If you wake her up and feed her, the food will rot in her digestive tract and she'll die. I never disturb my brumating tortoises. Some people wake them up and soak them, I don't.

Do you think I should just leave her be then, even though I didn't go through the two weeks of no feeding prior? I mean I know she started to eat less and used the bathroom some before burrowing in. But I can't say for a fact that she had an empty stomach...

 

[Justin90]

Ella actually woke up this past Saturday by her self! It was almost a month to the day she had been brumating. This being the first time shes brumated with me, it was like seeing a lost pet when I found her awake. After soaking in water for a while she did take a dump, which means she did brumate with food in her system...She definitely seems well rested, almost perky (if that's possible for tort haha).