Urgent Care :: Prolonged hibernation

[ojainan]

Last December, we gave our boss a Christmas present of a beautiful little red eared slider for the small pond we have in our atrium at work. Almost as soon as we put him in the atrium, he buried himself. Since we were afraid he might move to a spot where we couldn't locate him, we moved him to a much smaller atrium and he again went into hibernation. When he still hadn't moved from the spot where he was buried in May, we got him up, put him in a shallow plastic container with tepid water and a small amount of food. He seemed relatively frisky and otherwise fine, so we moved him back to the large atrium. He promptly disappeared, only to be discovered just yesterday, half-buried. We again put him in a container of tepid water and fed him a bit of food. He was very thirst and (from the appearance of his neck) appeared to be dehydrated.

When we set him out on the warm slate patio to bask for a bit, he again headed for a flower bed and started to rebury himself.

This doesn't seem like normal behaviour. Can anyone help with some ideas regarding what's going on with his seeming intent to constant hibernation?

[jenaero]

The first thing that comes to mind is temperature. If he's too cold he won't want to do much, but I'm not sure that's the case if you put him out for sun and he still does that?

[ojainan]

I would say that the average ambient air temps are about 78 during the day, cooling to the upper 50s to low 60s in the evening. In addition to placing him in the sun, we've also ensured that the small amount of water in the plastic container is comfortably tepid. He just seems to be hell-bent on burying himself and repeating the hibernation cycle.

[hoojib88]

I had a turtle that started to hibernate. Now his shell is kinda funky and I'm trying to fix that now. His reason for brumating was our light cycle was to short for him. Maybe you should try keeping the water at a warmer temperature. What's the water temperature? It should be somewhere around 78-80 degrees for a baby res and 72-75 for a full grown res.

[marisa]

If he's really small, it does sound like temps, especially if the water fluctuates with the ambient air temps that much, could be a bit low for him. How big is this pond? Can you add a heater to keep the water temp more constant in the mid 70's? (Check the water temp with a thermometer.) Does he have a basking area in this pond? The basking area needs to be about 10 degrees warmer than the water for him to want to bask. (Check it.)

Wanting to hide if he's been placed out in the open on the patio doesn't sound out of the ordinary.

[theartbook35]

If he's really small, it does sound like temps, especially if the water fluctuates with the ambient air temps that much, could be a bit low for him. How big is this pond? Can you add a heater to keep the water temp more constant in the mid 70's? (Check the water temp with a thermometer.) Does he have a basking area in this pond? The basking area needs to be about 10 degrees warmer than the water for him to want to bask. (Check it.)

Wanting to hide if he's been placed out in the open on the patio doesn't sound out of the ordinary.

That's what I was thinking too.

When I had the crappy set up for my turtles (only thing myself and the other people I lived with could afford at the time) they had little privacy so they attempted to bury themselves often to relieve their stress if they got that way at all. Good thing I kept them in a very low traffic room.

(I kinda of didn't know much about turtles specifically back then, so I just hit a local pet store and bought thing based on what I know about snake care... I got a tunnel for them to hide in, substrate for digging, and a big rock for them to get on to get out of the water.)