Winter is starting to make its presence felt, so this got me wondering, will my pet turtle hibernate? I know that a lot of turtles hibernate in the wild, but I never knew what pet turtles do in the winter, do they hibernate, do they brumate? So to find out I decided to do some research on this subject, this is what I found out.
Do pet turtles hibernate? Yes, pet turtles can hibernate, but only if you let them do it. You can easily avoid hibernation by keeping them at proper temperatures.
Pet turtles, just like normal turtles have the ability to hibernate, but it’s entirely up to you, the owner, and the conditions that you keep your turtle in, if they end up hibernating or not. Now let’s take a closer look at what those conditions are, and why turtles hibernate.
Hibernation
First, let’s take a closer look at what hibernation actually is and why turtles do it.
Hibernation is a state in which animals enter during periods of cold weather. When they are in this state they have a reduced metabolic rate. That means that they use very little energy, don’t need to eat or drink, and are basically sleeping the whole time.
Animals hibernate during the winter because the cold weather doesn’t allow vegetation to grow, and makes a lot of the animals or insects that they would normally eat, less active. So it’s basically a way for them to take a break until things go back to normal.
Now let’s take a short look at what happens when a turtle enters a state of hibernation.
What Happens When a Turtle Hibernates
Unlike most animals that hibernate, turtles are reptiles. And this means that they are cold-blooded animals. Cold-blooded animals are not able to generate body heat and they rely on the surrounding temperature to heat their body. So turtles will observe very easily subtle changes in the temperature.
When the weather starts to get cold the metabolism of a turtle will automatically start to slow down. And as a result, their hearts will start to slow down, along with all other processes that happen in their bodies.
In general, the heart of a turtle beats between 40 and 45 times per minute, when they hibernate they will slow down to around 10 beats per minute. This should give you an idea of how much they slow down during hibernation.
As a result of this slow down they will need considerably less oxygen, sometimes due to unfortunate situations turtles don’t have access to oxygen at all, but because they are hibernating they are able to live without oxygen for up to 5 months. They can also survive for 5 to 8 months without any food or water. The amount of time they can do those things varies from species to species, the numbers that I gave you are just some averages.
The fact that turtles don’t need to generate heat to warm their bodies is also very helpful for them because, unlike mammals that hibernate, turtles don’t need to use energy to warm their bodies. This also means that they have to be very careful with the place where choose to hibernate. So the fact that they are cold-blooded has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to hibernation.
Turtles are able to do all those amazing things because they reduce their metabolic rate. But reducing the metabolic rate can also have some unpleasant side effects. One of the bad things that happen is that they have a hard time getting rid of the lactic acid that accumulates. Lactic acid is the same thing that gives us muscle soreness, so you can imagine how unpleasant it can be for the turtle to wake up after a long sleep with muscle cramps all over the body.
To neutralize the lactic acid turtles use magnesium and calcium that they’ve stored in their shells. If they didn’t do that the lactic acid build-up would be too big, and they wouldn’t be able to wake up from hibernation at all.
The calcium and magnesium that they used would have helped them grow, but because getting rid of the lactic acid was more important they had to use it for that. This is another bad side effect, turtles won’t be able to grow when they hibernate. And growing isn’t something superficial for turtles, it’s something that can save their life. The bigger they get the fewer predators will come after them.
But in the end even if they don’t grow it was definitely worth it, because they managed to survive the winter.
One interesting thing that aquatic turtles do during the winter is that they gain the ability to breathe underwater. They are able to do this thanks to a gill-like structure called the cloaca.
The cloaca is the posterior orifice that serves as the only opening for the digestive, reproductive and urinary tract.
The main way a turtle breaths it’s through its nose, all turtles have small holes on their face that act as any normal nose would, when it comes to breathing, and of course they have two lungs where the air is transported. Until now there is nothing different in the way a turtle is breathing than the way you and I are breathing, they inhale air into their lungs and then exhale it, but the way things work on the inside is completely different.
When you inhale air, you can observe that your chest becomes smaller and when you exhale it becomes bigger, this happens because you have flexible ribs, turtles on the other hand have a shell that is not flexible at all. Since turtles don’t have this flexibility they have no use for the lung and muscle setup that we and most mammals have. Instead, turtles have muscles that pull the body outwards, towards the openings of the shell, to allow it to inhale, and more muscles to squish the turtle’s guts against its lungs to make it exhale.
The cloaca works in a similar way to the lungs, when the turtle is inside the water the cloaca will act like a pump that will suck water inside and after it gathered all the oxygen from it, it will expel the water out, and then it will start over. Due to the way things are arranged on the inside of the turtle this process is less exhausting than normal breathing.
Under normal circumstances, turtles wouldn’t be able to rely just on the cloaca to stay underwater for long periods of time, but when they are hibernating the amount of oxygen that the cloaca can produce is enough for them to spend months underwater.
Now that you know the basics about turtle hibernation let’s return to pet turtles.
Pet Turtles Hibernation
As I said, turtles enter the state of hibernation when the temperatures are getting very low. So it’s up to you if you want to let your turtle experience those low temperatures or not.
If you keep your pet turtles outside in a pond, or in an enclosure, you can let them outside during the winter and they will hibernate. If you don’t want to let them hibernate you can bring them inside, and keep them there until the winter passes.
If you have very young turtles, under 3 years old, it’s better to keep them away from hibernation if possible. But if your turtle is older than that then you can let them hibernate without having to worry.
If you want your turtle to hibernate then you should read this article:
How to Help Your Turtle Hibernate, contains information on everything that you have to do to help your turtle hibernate, general tips, and step-by-step guides.
At the beginning of the article I also said that turtles can brumate, so let’s talk a little about that as well.
Brumation
Brumation is very similar to hibernation, but with one major difference. During hibernation, the turtles are asleep, while during brumation they are awake.
During brumation all processes in the body start to slow down, this includes their heart rate, the rate at which they breathe, etc. During brumation turtles also don’t eat food, or they eat very little food.
When turtles are brumating they do very little, they rarely bask, they don’t look for food or for water, they just walk around, or sometimes they just stay in the same place for hours without doing anything.
Not too much can be said about brumation, it’s just a state in which turtles go in when it’s cold outside, but not cold enough for them to hibernate. And when they are in this state they don’t do anything.
Turtles usually start brumating when the weather gets cold, but not cold enough for them to start hibernating. A lot of pet turtles go brumate during the winter months, it is something very common.
When winter comes it’s normal for the temperature in a house to go down a little. Turtles take this as a sign that winter is coming, so they start preparing to hibernate. But since the temperature never goes down enough for them to hibernate, they stay in the brumation state.
You can also prevent your turtle from brumating by simply making sure that the temperatures in the room, and in the tank are high enough.
Conclusion
In the end, It’s up to you if you want to let your turtle hibernate or brumate. There is no reason to let your turtle do any of those things, there are no benefits to them. In the wild turtles only do this because they have to, in order to survive. It’s not something that they do because they enjoy it.
But if you want to let your turtle hibernate, make sure that you read this article: How to Help Your Turtle Hibernate, there you will find everything that you need to know.
Related Questions
Do land turtles hibernate? Yes, some land turtles hibernate as well. HIbernating is not exclusive to land, sea, or aquatic turtles. It all depends on the environment that they live in, and if they choose to migrate or to stay.
How long do turtles hibernate? It all depends on the weather. If the bad weather lasts only for 3 months then turtles will only hibernate for 3 months. If the bad weather lasts for 6 months, turtles will hibernate for 6 months.
Do turtles feel cold? Yes, turtles can feel cold. Turtles are cold-blooded, meaning that they don’t generate their own body heat, and they rely on environmental heat to maintain their body temperature. And they have to be able to feel cold and heat to be able to choose a good spot to bask.
Hello,
If you enjoy the content that we create, please consider saying a "Thank You!" by leaving a tip.
Every little bit can help us tremendously in continuing to create quality content that helps turtle and tortoise owners around the world.
We really appreciate the kindness and support that you show us!