Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Morning All,
I have a platyrhino female and keep her in my reptile room.
As a whole the midwest gets very cold with below 0 temps.
I have a small house that will be kept heated, and my reptile room is normally at 8-80 degrees.
I have a basement, but it is NOT insulated, has bare dirt floor, and really no where in my home that will be kept a low temp except the fridge...
I will have access to a home where she could be kept at hibernating temps...
But does anyone have ideas of how I could keep her here at home and let her hibernate?

Carol

You'll need to come up with something? Question are you breeding her? If you just have her then you might consider putting her in a ventilated shoe box in the corner of your closet. O love on an insulated house in Texas and it gets down to 66 degrees when it is very cold outside freezing. I assume your house gets down to such temps or even closer?? You need to have her empty her stomach and stop feeding her, after two to three weeks reduce heat for a week and then finally put her down. You must be aware that temps in the 120's on the ground are very common in her natural environment during summer. So 60 degrees is cold for her or 55 is cold. Put some sand in the plastic box so she can dig under the ground, wake her up every couple seeks and put a dropper to her mouth with water to see if she will drink. Make sure she is not losing a lot of weight, some weight loss is normal. I would bet a closet in your house close to an outer wall would certainly be in that range, especially being your area gets down to teens and even 0. Be sure and read good info on putting your lizard down properly, they must empty the digestive track or the food will sour during hibernation and they will die..... Hope this brief idea would help....
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