For it to slow down on eating at this time of year is expected. If it doesn't disappear under the sand for long periods of time, then you need to keep it well hydrated, provide food daily like you are doing and give it enough heat to keep the metabolism up enough to digest. Becareful not to overwhelm it with too many prey items. Provide just a few pinhead crickets or ants(10 )two or three times a day. You can figure out what the optimum count is by slowly increasing the number until some are left after a 15 minute eating period.

Your hydration technique sound very close to what I do, which seems to work just fine for me. I don't place a water bowl in the cage, to many detrimental issues related with that technique. Instead, I use a separate disposable GLAD container for hydration. I start by placing no more then 1/4 inch of warm tap water in the bottom. I then place the animal in the container and the spritz it with more warm tap water until it is pretty much soaked. They tend to jump around at first but then settle down within a few seconds. Within a minute or two they start smacking their lips. What they are doing here is sucking the water from the corner of their mouths that has wicked up from the hands. Very interesting to watch. About 10 mintues of this technique 1 to 3 times a week should do just fine. Be sure to let them completely dry-out and re-heat in the aquarium before putting them to bed for the night. You don't want them going cold while they are wet.

Like you, right now I have two of my group that are refusing to hibernate while the others have been burried deep for weeks. These two are behaving like it's late summer, that is they are less active and eating less then they do in the spring and early summer. They don't appear to have any issues with weight and pretty much drink every time I hydrate them so although I'm concerned, I'm not too worried. Just the same, I still watch them pretty closely and if they start to look like they are loosing any weight then I up the frequency of hydration, which seems to re-activate their apetites.

Good luck,
Roger

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