Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This year I want to hibernate my guy through winter.I need advice.He is kept outside currently and the weather has gotten a bit chilly so he dug his big hole and I havent seen him in a few days.
I have to bring him inside to hibernate him it gets way below freezing outside in winter.
My attic is between 50-60 degrees in winter is that too warm?
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I'm not going to tell you that your attic is fine, but here in FL, we hibernate tegus outside and some days it never gets down to 50-60 at all. I just wanted to share our experience.

So then is it not necessary to lower temps very much when hibernating? Don't mean to intrude into this post I'm just curious...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say, "Not really." Of course, herpers have so many different ways of doing things. Let me compare it to bearded dragons for a minute, or snakes. Some people put away their dragons and snakes for a period of brumation. They box them up and put them in a cooler or closet for a couple of months. Others just let them be or turn off the lights. I keep my beardies and tegu in their cage and let nature takes its course. Being in Central FL, there's not a whole lot I can do to control the photoperiod and the temps! Sure, I turn the lights on and off, but they see the sun. We have longer periods of sunlight here in FL than our northern counterparts and the temps stay higher longer, but they hibernate/brumate eventually. My tegu is preparing for hibernation, she's in an enclosure in my garage, and it's 83 degrees today.

I hope I'm making sense and not rambling. I'm only speaking from my own experience in that tegus in FL hibernate without a large drop in temperature. It just takes them a little longer to get to it. The trigger for hibernation is not just temperature, but also photoperiod, the shortening of the days. They have their little internal clocks ticking away...