Northern brumation/breeding

[lucasrusinak]

So I have 2 northerns, one male and one suspected female. I have thought about breeding them this coming season if they do turn out to be a pair and have done a decent amount of research on it.

My question is about brumation. I have read the care sheet and have the general idea, but with it being November already the temps have dropped in the enclosures without me doing anything yet both blues have still been coming out to bask nearly every day. When do I know to stop feeding and start cooling? do I wait until they start showing signs of slowing down themselves, or do I take initiative and start lessening their daylight hours? I know I do not want to drop the heat/light time until at least a week after the last feeding. Any help and advice is appreciated!

[Susann]

Well, your question could not be better timed; I've got Scincoides JUST about to post a thread on it in the FAQ

[Susann]

It's up now!

[lucasrusinak]

It's up now!

Thank you! I read it and it was helpful. However, I still am wondering if I should put them into brumation (slowly reduce heat time) or just let them go on their own.
Also, once they are in brumation I am wondering how much heat/lighting to offer. I have read that some still give heat/basking spot, some dont at all, and some go down to as little as 2 hours a day for a basking spot. I live in NY so I'd assume once they go into brumation, the temps will automatically drop and whether I provide heat or not wont make much of a difference

[Susann]

Well, I can answer half of that inquiry.
Unless you are looking to breed this spring (I know you mentioned breeding, just making sure you're looking to introduce when they wake up in a few months...), it's always best and safest to take your ques from your skinks and let them go on their own. If they don't go down on their own though, you need to leave enough time to get in, I believe, at least a good 4 weeks at cool enough temperatures to signal their bodies to go into fertility/reproductive modes. But there should certainly be enough time for that at this point --I've heard of some that don't go all the way down until the end of Dec --although, neither do I know if that was enough to produce young...

More than that I'm afraid you'll have to wait for someone else to answer as I've never owned skinks that needed to be brumated... So, as for temperatures and what-not

[Richard.C]

Hi lucas

With northerns,they will generally tell you when to stop feeding,as they typically just slow down with food consumed,i live in a cool area that has long cool winters so to cycle mine for breeding i do sweet diddly squat,they have access to heat year round but with the long cool winters the ambients drop in my enclosures and they just follow that,they slow down eating then pretty much stop and matung happens when its at its coldest,though if it cools down quicker than normal they mate a fair bit earlier,thing is i have no control and they are running off my ambient temps,it just worrks out to it being pretty similar to nature where they get hot days all year round but have a distinct dry season where over night temps are on average ten degrees cooler

I read the skinks behaviour,they will tell you whats going on,eg not eating much i feed less,not eating at all i just offer some here or there just in case
I have huge temp gradients in my cages which gives them choices,some stay active,some go a d curl up down cold end and some do a bit of both,they all cycle this way and successfully breed

In saying all that,northerns are very forgiving of different cycling methods,others fully cool them with no hot spot access with success to,my climate and set up isnt good for holding consisten temps so i give them choices and let them dictate what they want,giving them alot of choices to covers you if u get something a little bit wrong,so i find alot less issues health wise going this way in my climate