Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, after a long day, (week), at work, yesterday I came home to a long awaited surprize!!! My 3-toes were up at awake, which is actually a bit early for them here. Usually don't see them untill early to mid April. Winter is very long here and they have been brumating since mid Oct. so six months is a long time under. Funny thing is that they went under early last fall mid Oct. usually they wait untill late Oct. I gave them a bath in coldish-slightly warm water and scrubbed the dirt off with a tootbrush,which the really seemed to like and then feed them some mixed vegtables and nightcrawler which they suprizingly ate like they didn't miss a day, usually they are sluggish for a week or so, but they were moving around last night and this morning like they hadn't missed a day. Also one of them got a lot bigger than the other since last fall, and the other one has some yellow radiating bands on some of the scutes on top of his/her shell now, they were definately not there last fall. They are 6.5yrs old now, I thought I had two females but maybe the one is a male, which would be great. I guess I will put them outside since the forcast looks good, but we could still get a freeze in the next few weeks. I guess I will just keep an eye on the weather and bring them back in the basement if it looks like night time will go below 40. Now I have a reason to get up at the crack of dawn everyday again!!! Yeah, for my turtles for surviving another long winter!!!

All right!!
Congrats on them all waking up!
Isn't it great to see them?
-----
PHRatz

Thanks PHRatz, It's especially relieving to see them bright eyed and healthy and then seeing them eat, six months without food is hard to relate to as a human. They are amazingly well adapted creatures, with so much individual personality.

Did they eat right away?
Our Hobo didn't last year & then this year again he didn't eat right away.
You'd think he'd be hungry but.. well of course he could've eaten something that I didn't give him.. but it was about a week or so before he would take food from me.
-----
PHRatz

Actually I think only the one ate right after I gave him/her (sorry we have been waiting to name them after sex is detirmined) a bath, as in immediately, but I don't think the other did, and then I watched the same one eat Sat. and Sun. but the other did not, however the one that I did not see eating was spending a lot of time in the water, so I was a little concerned, but then this morning the other one ate like crazy after I put food in the pen, must have just taken a couple of days to get hydrated and build up an appetite I guess.

Ok thanks.. I just wanted to compare notes on what they do when they first wake up.
-----
PHRatz