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Contrary to popular belief, tortoises of the types most commonly kept in Britain as pets do actually hibernate in the wild. They do so, however, for much shorter periods than they are subjected to in this country. Here it has been commonplace to attempt a hibernation of up to six or even seven months, whereas in the wild these same tortoises have been used to a hibernation rarely longer than ten to twelve weeks. We believe in replicating natural conditions as closely as possible in respect of hibernation periods, and so we do not recommend giving your tortoise an over-long hibernation.
Most fatalities occur either near the beginning, or at the end of the hibernation period. The reasons for some of these fatalities will be discussed in detail later, but you can certainly improve your tortoises chances greatly simply by limiting the period of hibernation to not more than 20 weeks at the outside. This, it should be stressed, is for a perfectly fit specimen which is fully up to weight.
Tortoises which are anything less than 100% fit, or are in any way underweight, will require a proportionally shorter period of hibernation under carefully controlled conditions; possibly they may even need keeping awake and feeding over the entire winter season.
