One of my female Eastern Hermann's tortoises refuses to completely wake up from hibernation. I took her and all the other tortoises out of the fridge almost a month ago and released them into their particular partitioned area of the backyard. All the other torts woke up and have remained fairly active, but this one large female (the one I acquired last summer from the reptile show) headed directly under a bush growing against the house, dug under the soil and went to sleep. After a week or so, I dug her up and put her in the sun to see if she would wake up and stay that way. I have done this several times over the last couple of weeks, but she just goes to the same spot and digs into the cool earth to sleep each time. She is not in a deep hibernation, but she is definitely in a state of torpor and seems to want to stay that way. It is well into spring and although the weather has been somewhat unseasonably cool, she should be awake by now. She appears to be healthy when I have examined her and she does wake up totally when I take her out of the ground, but not for long.
Anyone seen this before? I have never encountered this before. She is a large adult at least ten years old, and it is certainly possible this is the first time she has hibernated.
