I have had the same problem with my fringe-toed sand lizards, it is between 69-72 in the house and with the lights out one or more of my fringee's come out during the day for short periods, if they continue to stay active this also means they are using fat reserves. So I may have to put them in the garage, but my garage is about 50 to 55 at the coldest, and I wanted to hibernate them just for a short time in a little warmer temp but I am sure this will be fine---now with respect to your animal--I'll give you my opinion.

First of all thanks for providing a picture so he can be evaluated. While I can see he has some fat reserves those back legs and his tail look like he is working that down, being that ground temps in the summer are 130 degrees and above often one would think that your house temp would be fine, but also it is known fact that some younger animals don't often go down for the whole winter and may sun themselves on warm days and take occassional sustinace when avialable where as full adults often are down for the count. So you don' say how long you've had him down? His eyes look wide open and healthy, one other thing is this just may be his coloring, these wild caught aniamls, I am assuming yours is, often have small parasitic mites that are orange or blue and real small about the size of a dot from a pencil maybe a little bigger. Check your animal over especially under the horns and around the ears to make sure he is not harboring any mites as these have a tendency to affect overall health as well. IF you do find some, you can remove with a good mite spray or physiclly if there is not a lot of them remove them with a tweezer, but the mite spray would be good - only if you find them, the reason I mention that is there was a dark spot by his tail in your picture and some other dark spots under the hornes that are probably just coloration, but incase I thought I would bring this to your attention. Also what have you been feeding him in the past, obviously ants but anything else?



SO I like to see more fat on my horned lizards bones for hibernation especially for a couple months, but someone else might chime in and give there opinion as well, if it gets in the 20's in your garage that is low.......If it was mine, I would warm him up and feed him small crickets, possibly some small wax worms,and if you have earwigs in your area you might capture some of these (remove the clippers at the end of the tail) get him well hydrated (not that he isn't) and then possibly try him again for a month, but he'll be ready to get up by March. If you should do that you need to be congnizant of not feeding him for 10 days or at least making sure he is cleaned out before you put him down again. Somehow it might be good if you could come up with a place that is around 55 degrees should you decide to put him down now. You don't want him to be active to the point of using his reserves up early either. But looking at his body he looks healthy but I wouldn't characterize him as being fat or robust, just my take on him.......... Be sure and heat him up to full summer type temps to get his body activated,do you have a cage sperate form others? Obviously if you have others in the same cage they will come out too. So you have to think about that..........CHeers!!
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