Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all,

I have a healthy happy dragon who is is in his second winter. He seems to be determined to go into brumation already, though it seems a bit early to me. He's avoiding his basking spot, slowed eating, caving up etc... all the signs he wants to brumate he gave last year. He never fully went under last year, just slowed waaaay down and drowsed. Should I be concerned about how early it seems he's doing this or what? He's been to the vet very recently, clean fecals etc.....
Is anyone else's Dragon doing this already?

QB

I have 4 adults down already, but many still up and pretty active. I live in New Jersey so temps are starting to change with much colder nights, and cooler days. Cage temps during the day have not changed much, but they have shorter day light cycles now, and places in the cages to go with full shade.

When they start to show signs of brumation I go ahead and take them in for a fecal sample, get them checked and if everything checks out I start cutting back the day light hours and letting them do what they feel is natural. I feel this is important as I personally fear mixing up the natural signs of brumation with illness.
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Mystical-Dragons Web Site
Webshots photos

My oldest male has been out since the end of August.

I did the same thing Mystical-Dragons, had my guy checked out before he went fully out. But since nothing was wrong health-wise, I just cut back his "daylight" hours, and out he went.

Do you turn their lights off during this time ? Or just shorten the time they are on, say to like 8hrs. vs. 12 hrs.?

>>Do you turn their lights off during this time ? Or just shorten the time they are on, say to like 8hrs. vs. 12 hrs.?

I've shortened mine about two hours, so it's 10 hours down from 12, down from 14 hours. I'm gonna wait for the "spring-forward, fall-back" period and then drop him to about 8 hours. I just haven't decided on whether or not I need to switch to a dimmer bulb.
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Dl

Basically, my dragon has done the same thing, but I induced it, unintentionally. I cut down his light time by an hour and changed the angle of his light thus reducing the hot spot temp from about 106 to about 95 degrees. This is the first brumation for mine in three years. You can't interupt the brumation so just cut the light down to about ten hours and monitor it's "winterization"

>>Hi all,
>>
>>I have a healthy happy dragon who is is in his second winter. He seems to be determined to go into brumation already, though it seems a bit early to me. He's avoiding his basking spot, slowed eating, caving up etc... all the signs he wants to brumate he gave last year. He never fully went under last year, just slowed waaaay down and drowsed. Should I be concerned about how early it seems he's doing this or what? He's been to the vet very recently, clean fecals etc.....
>>Is anyone else's Dragon doing this already?
>>
>>
>>QB

Yup, Draconis is starting to search for areas in his tank to avoid the light, and is now ignoring most food put in front of him. Since he really didn't brumate much last year, I suspect he's about ready for a good sleep this time. About how low do the temp and lighting need to be to help him do this? I keep the house set at least 75 deg. on the norm.

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Dl

I keep my place around 70-75 degrees all year long. I just cut back the hours of day light in the cages, and offer mine a fully shaded hide. I do this simply by angling a piece of cardboard against the cold side of the cage making a fully shaded dark hide. The shaded spot will actually give them access to cooler temps. Once they found the spot, and are really showing the signs I turn down the lights more and drop temps to about 95 basking spot just incase they wake up.
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Mystical-Dragons Web Site
Webshots photos