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my baby turtle

22 16:48:26

Question
I have a baby aquatic turtle. i'm trying to get him to eat. he usually attacks his pellets, but he won't touch them. does it have something to do with hibernation? or could he be sick?

Answer
It can be many things, but without more information to go on, I'd bet hibernation.

As the day light cycles get shorter and the quality of the light changes, it signals turtles to stop eating so they can enter hibernation without a stomach full of food, and ot begin looking for a nice place to hibernate.

We can often trick them into thinking they are in Florida or somewhere by giving them good quality lighting, good temps, and so on.

Lighting:
This is a lot trickier than most keepers think it is. The key issue is not how bright the light is, but how closely it simulates sunlight.

Sunlight is a 'full spectrum light'- that means that when it shines through a prism, it shows all colors about equally, and also has infrared and ultraviolet. Most household lights are only partial spectrum. Plant lights are heavy on purple, blue, and green. Regular bulbs are mostly yellow and flourecent bulbs are blue. Sunlight shining through a window is filtered because the ultraviolet does not pass through glass or most plastics.

You can get full spectrum bulbs at pet shops, but they are kinda expensive. You can fake it by using several household bulbs and some timers. Set them up to turn on and off like this (basing the times to whatever works for you:
8:00 am- turn on flourescent bulb
9:00 am- turn on incandescent bulb
11:00 am- turn on an infrared heat lamp (adjust this time earlier or later as needed to avoid chills or overheating in the tank)
1:00 pm- turn on black light bulb for UV light
2:00 pm- turn off black light
4:00 pm- turn off infrared
6:00 pm- turn off incandescent
8:00 turn off flourescent

This routine has a lot of advantages- it simulates dawn and dusk, gets warmer as the day goes on, encourages basking, etc.

Adjust the times and positions of the IR and UV bulbs as needed for warmth, and to warm up whatever the turtle basks on.

Be sure to keep some shade available as well- turtles need to be able to choose sun/heat or shade/cool.

Temperatures:
This time of year, we usually need to boost temps a few degrees. Do this based on the turtles behavior. If it is not eating and hiding in one corner, boost temps until it seems ot help. Once it is eating again, monitor the temps. If it spends a lot of time basking, boost them some more. If it hides in cools places, drop them a little.



A good website that can help in a lot of ways is www.tortoise.org.

Good luck!