Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My Tegu is a 4 year old female who is spening her first winter on the balcony. She is in a 200 gallon tank with two heat pads a UVB and two heat bulbs 100 75watts. For the past two months she has not eaten a rat there is no interest whatsoever only an occasional egg or berry. Please shed some light is this normal.
I am not familiar with the hibernation process.

See the post below by Stella St. Pierre, it will answer your questions.

My concern would be the set-up you are using. Is this tank outside? How enclosed is this balcony? I would worry about water getting on or in the electical works of the lights and heaters. What state are you in? I'm wondering how cold it may get on the balcony. A glass tank has no insulating properties. In the wild the tegu would dig down deep into the ground to protect it from really low temps, wind and moisture (snow, sleet , freezing rain). I don't think the tank will serve that purpose. Give us a little more info about the set-up.

Jim,

The balcony is open but I have it tarped off so the rain never touches the lamps or heater. It is raining now actually-San Jose Ca. I have a 100 watt night bulb-is this enough? The substrate is about 8" deep. What sort of setup would you recommend-lamps, pads, substrate-Thanks for the reply

In the article on Tegus in the November 2002 Reptiles magazine, Bert Langerwerf says:
"In areas roughly north of the Atlanta/Dallas line, you can simply let them enter hibernation outdoors, dig them up at the end of October or start of November and have them continue their hibernation in a box full of leaves or hay. The box can be kept in a basement or elsewhere where the temperature is between 40 and 60 degrees."
I remember seeing something in a turtle book about using a wooden box full of hay or leaves to put a turtle in to hibernate. I'll try to look up that info and post it sometime.
Another thought, take styrofoam and tape it to the outside of the tank. I once did this to create an incubator and it worked fine.
The main thing is to monitor the temps very closely. I would suggest a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer. You can run the outdoor sensor into the substrate and keep the indoor portion on top of the tank, this will give you the readings you need. It also stores the highest and lowest temps reached. They're not too expensive.
A word of warning, even though the tegu is hibernating, it can still be killed by low temps. Bert mentions 33 degrees as the lethal low.