You don't say where you are located, but, wherever it is, the only way to make a turtle eat at hibernating time is to make it think that it is not hibernating time, and that can be tough. Their bodies automatically note the length of daylight and the change in the daytime and nighttime temperatures, and they get ready to hibernate, which means that they stop eating so they will have time to defecate the remnants of their last meals before they go to sleep.

     The three turtles that I keep in an outside pool have, like yours, also already stopped eating (I live in New York state). I always hibernate mine and they do well, but, if you don't want to, you'll have to add light to the enclosure to keep the day long enough to seem like summer, and you'll have to make sure that there is plenty of warmth (like summer). Some turtles stop eating as it starts to cool down in the autumn, even when it's consistently as warm as 53 degrees F. The problem arises because, even if they don't seem to be moving at all, you can't merely let them stay at that temperature and not eat (in a cool basement, for example). At that temperature their bodies have not slowed down enough yet so, since they are not eating and not truly hibernating, they starve.

 

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