My two cents.....and although I am a biologist by training, I am not a herpetologiest and my experience is narrow. I raised one box turtle from egg to adulthood, now 7.5 years old and hibernating outside. I also have two almost 3 year olds from eggs (taken by me from a roadkill) that are still inside. All are healthy and have smooth, perfect shells. I did not use a UV bulb and I hibernated at room temps when the youngsters were inside (both items go agains much wisdom you see here). These are Easterns, I am in NJ. Alhtough I can not see much difference in lighting or temps of the inside environment of the hatchlings, they seem to still somehow "sense" the winters. They butrrow down for much of the time....although they do come up and soak now and again, or change thier resting area. Every several weeks they seem more active and I may give them a worm or such at that time. Come Spring, they are active and voraceous again. I figure at the more southern part of their range they would not neceasarily experience near freezing all year. When active, I do try to get them outside in real sunlight on occasion.....maybe once every week or two in summer, much less in winter, for 10 or 15 supervised minutes. I do feed a variety of food...and I try to include a lot of fresh caught, live food when they are young (worms, slugs, pillbugs, etc.). The youngsters are kept on moist peat, and have a water dish with clean water and hiding places at all times.
If things warm up, try offering your hatchling some live food. If it doesn't eat, let it hibernate longer. If it does eat then keep it at "normal" temps again (e.g. don't let it have a full stomach and then keep it cold). Good luck with him/her. Yes, it was a few years before I knew my first is a male!

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]