Tortoises going 'mad' without food...

[Suze65]

Originally Posted by RacingSnake

Suze, so how would/do you do it?

Just reduce the temperatures/daylight?

When I got my first young ones ( now adults ) I let them wind down same as the oldies, naturally with the season , no lights, just got on with it. Now they're adults and I've had no problems. I've never done all this " keep the lights on and temps up and starve them for the first week " and so on. Not saying it's wrong, cos obviously it works, just saying they wouldn't starve themselves this way in the wild. Eating would slow down as the temps and day light hours reduce.
I would like to know can it be done this way with the lights.

Sorry I'm not trying to be awkward , I'm genuinely interested to know if you can do a controlled wind down more naturally .

[Catwoman63]

What I do before start of windown, is reduce the food over a few weeks (for the juveniles anyway, but to be honest they lived outside so as it got into October, they were eating less anyway, when I brought them indoors at the end of October, it was warmer so they wanted to eat more, which does make it harder, outside you be able to not look at them so much my adults reduce their food intake themselves from September, so even though I may have put a slate of food down for them, they didn't touch it x

[Suze65]

Thanks Bev that makes sense, when I finally get my young ones into hibernation hopefully next year, I think that's what I will do, reduce the food the week before stopping food and maybe reduce the hours of light slightly too, my adults start slowing down slowly from September onwards , they just get on with.

[Levi]

Originally Posted by mediterraneansuze

When I got my first young ones ( now adults ) I let them wind down same as the oldies, naturally with the season , no lights, just got on with it. Now they're adults and I've had no problems. I've never done all this " keep the lights on and temps up and starve them for the first week " and so on. Not saying it's wrong, cos obviously it works, just saying they wouldn't starve themselves this way in the wild. Eating would slow down as the temps and day light hours reduce.
I would like to know can it be done this way with the lights.

Sorry I'm not trying to be awkward , I'm genuinely interested to know if you can do a controlled wind down more naturally .

I agree Suze, it would make far more sense to fake winter coming first, longer nights, possibly give them a few slightly cooler days, less food and then finally stop feeding. It must be a bit of a shock for the inside tort table type torts to suddenly have no food when the lighting length and heat is all exactly the same, no wonder they go mental.

[Suze65]

Yes that makes more sense, I really don't agree with just stopping food when heat and light is is still up, that's all, just saying is there a different way.