outside hibernation

[DixieParadise]

I have the good fortune of having many big oak trees around and the leaves are brown and dry. Guess I didn't do a very good job of maintaing my yard this year....lol. Good for Jeter non-the-less. Never thought about the frost line. I am in Central Texas and I don't believe it is as low as yours. Seems to me it is about 6 inches, but I will check into it. Thanks again.

 

[Roxie]

OK, you have to help me understand frost line, lol. I live in the Orlando, FL area and have for the past 30 something years. Plus I am a FL native. I don't think our soil freezes. We get frost on the grass or rooftops a few nights each year. When I looked it up, there is no frost line set for FL on the frost line map.

I think I'm going to work on a plastic shoebox type hide cave for Roxie. I have dry oak leaves everywhere. She's peeking up at me from under her log today. So, keep feeding as long as they eat?

 

[terryo]

I really don't know anything about hibernating in Fl. I stopped feeding last week. Now it's up to them, if they find any bugs or worms and they want to eat them or not. Usually they are done eating even before I stop offering food. In your case with no frost line I would just pile up the leaves on top of loose soil.

 

[DixieParadise]

That's what I did (piled the leaves ontop of the soil). But I wanted to put a structure over Jeter, so that I could kind of insulate from the rain, if we get any this winter. He seemed ok with the tote hide piled with leaves. He has plenty of loose soil below him to dig himself in... He hasn't touched his water (which up until 3 days ago...he would soak himself)...so I think he is ready for his nap. Fingers crossed and monitoring....

 

[Saloli]

where is Tom located? is he in the same zone as you?

 

[terryo]

Tom is in Pennsylvania. Their Winters are just as bad, if not worse than ours. Today was in the 50's here and has gone down to the 40's, and I didn't see any of the turtles. I checked a few times during the day and again tonight. Everyone has gone into the cave, including my little Gulf Coast. Anxiety is setting in.