If at your place there lives an overland turtle, you have to know that in winter time she needs to fall into hibernation. Of course, in the conditions of the Russian apartments when central heating joins, it is not really simple to arrange to a turtle suitable conditions for a wintering. But if precisely to adhere to certain instructions and to meet conditions of keeping, your reptile will live much longer and will be healthy and cheerful.
It is required to you
- turtle, a terrarium with a heating element, a lodge shelter
Instruction
1. First, a story that in the apartment the turtle can quite do also without wintering – the myth. Turtles need to fall once a year into hibernation, otherwise they very quickly lose forces, become sluggish and die very much early. Usual Central Asian turtles winter from November to March, and it means that these months your favourite has to be in rest and sleep somewhere in the cool dark place. The fact that the turtle does not fall asleep independently – quite naturally. She - a being cold blooded and all its vital signs entirely depend on temperature of the external environment. So far in the apartment warmly, she will be awake.
2. To prepare a turtle for hibernation, organize it special conditions with lower temperature. If you support an animal in a terrarium, with approach of fall it is necessary to lower slightly the contents temperature that it was simpler to turtle to adapt. Do not do it sharply at all. Today it was warm, as usual, and tomorrow – 8 degrees and the turned-off light – it is inadmissible. Everything has to be most similar to natural fall of temperature in the nature. Only in this case your turtle will have a smooth transition from wakefulness for sleeping and there will be no additional stress.
3. Usually turtles very well and feel approach of fall on change of length of light day. Approximately at the end of July – the beginning of August the turtle becomes more sluggish and begins to refuse food. If you lower temperature in a terrarium, gradually the turtle will cease to eat at all, seeking to prepare the organism for future wintering. During sleep the reptile does not eat, but you should not worry about it. During this period all processes in an organism of an animal happen because of low temperature very slowly therefore the need for food completely is absent. Approximately in a week prior to the beginning of November temperature in a terrarium has to be 15-18 degrees. The light can be turned on every other day or not to include absolutely.