Reptile & Amphibian Forums

All of the turtles here have gone under for their long winter's nap. I managed to get the hibernacula prepped just before the temps started dropping into the 30's at night here in Central VA. I'll be adding more leaves over the top in the next few days, but otherwise they are pretty much good to go.

I'm glad you had a drawing of your hibernacula last year the easterns jumped in like I had installed a Olympic size swimming pool with leaves in place of water. Now this year with 12 in there I'm surprised they didn't ask for party hats.

Glad to hear that it worked well. Mine have hibernated in the same set up for years now.
The next phase is to tidy up the pen in general and trim back some of the weedy growth, etc.

I tried to search the forum and find those pics, but with no success. Would you mind reposting them Steph? I'm curious to see what you're working with.

It was just a sketch I'd done: a cross-section of what the hibernaculum here looks like (approximately)

And you have this outside? What are the dimensions?

Depth is about 2', width about 4', length about 6', but the length dimension is sloped, so the area at the bottom that is 2' deep is also only 4' wide and 2' long. So, its a rectangular trench that slopes inward and downward at either end.

It did some random temperature readings within the hibernacula last winter, and found that the temperature remains quite stable (no *sudden* changes) and never dropped under about 42 degrees F.