some outdoor brumating blueys from today

[Richard.C]

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This is in the lowlands blotchy side of the cage,the sheets of wood are the lids to a large buried hide ive put in there especially for lizards to brumate in

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This is one side of box lid opened where the entrence to hide is,as u can see nothings inside the box as usual,though if you look close to right hand corner it doesnt help that an eastern longneck turtles decided to brumate in hide entrence this season,lol,the water dragons do what there doing in the pic,dig under the over hang and brumate outside of box where its constantly damp,sometimes the burrow under ground,there was 3 there,didnt see the other 3 so im guessing half have burrowed down somewhere for winter

[Richard.C]

Reason i was in there today was to weed it out,grass was knee high and quite thick,havnt given it a weed since females started dropping back in late march

Oddly my easterns have never done well outdoors here,so ive been watching what the wildones do,we get a ton of wild ones here and over last 15 years ive slowly cottoned on to my shortcomings.

Easterns whilst extremely common here,use what ever they can to stay warmer than what our crappy weather provides,ive watched a ton of them use warm compost piles to brumate in,when it gets to warm in there they actually climb out and cool them selves next to pile before returning to it later in the day,years ago i watched one eastern over a couple of winters do same thing in an empty paddack over the back fence,though it brumated under an old window frame with one intact window,greenhouse affect through glass,sunny days it got to warm so clambered out and sat next to frame to keep cool,went back under when sun was gone

Anyways so i have tried a little experiment,when i weed now i leave a fair bit against a few of the cages walls,it dries out and breaks down and i keep adding to it next time i weed them out

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Heres an eastern from today,up against front of cage where most sun hits tin all day and in a spot where the are is alot dryer,he looks perfect,been there since april

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Close up of him

[Richard.C]

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As a comparison,this is how the crazy blotchies brumate,curled up in the open in wet grass,these ones the lowlands i weeded up,lol

[Richard.C]

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Some vic alpines,will post some more later as have to head back to work,blotchies are amazingly cold hardy

[RoryBreaker]

Some great info there Rich.

[Richard.C]

Thanks dave,first time ive seen most of them since april,the cunningham skinks are often still out , there cold hardy buggers to,alot of folk dont realise just how cold hardy some of these species are,a few times we have had hail storms that leave a 3 to 4 inch thick layer of hail stones accross floor of enclosure,deeper on the edges where wind angles it in,sometimes takes 3 or 4 days for it to melt,i used to pull blotchies out of the ice and pop them in that hide box,as they felt close to frozen,but they would just lumber back out and curl up exposed again,so i eventually just left them be,and they all come out fine in spring,none the worse,if easterns try that theu would succumb,yet both species are found commonly here

I often have to deal with minor respitory issues with easterns in early spring,so yeah working on experimenting with some options to prevent these issues,prefferebly with out resorting to placing glass windows out there,lol

[Roarschak11]

That is so interesting! Do any of the lizards actually use the burmation box you made? What would you guess would be a reason for Eastens having such low tolerance com paired to the blotchies?

[Richard.C]

Naah none use my brumation box,im guessing its to dry,at best they brumate just outside it under the overlapping lid where soil stays constantly damp

Easterns are a wider ranging species than blotchies,blotchies from cold areas,easterns from cold to tropical zones,down here easterns are more common in open areas,especially around areas interfered by humans,blotchies more common in areas with alot of scrub still,being more cold hardy they can survive just curled up exposed,the easterns seem to need to find areas that are a bit warmer ,if not they are susceptable to upper respitory issues

[Geezer]

Do you ever check their body temperature while they are brumating? I would be curious to know the temp ranges of their bodies.

[Scotts1au]

This topic prompted me to go out to my outdoor enclosure to have a look at my blotchies.

This time of year is often a pain as the nutrient levels that build up in the soil of the enclosure as a result of soo much bluey poo makes the weeds grow like well "weeds". Anyway to illustrate the point. You can see weeds that I've previously taken out and placed on top of the sleeping bunker.

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Sleeping blueys in the dirt.

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Currently it is winter here in Southern Australia - Victoria, it is 10C outside (ambient).
Soil temp at surface is 6.2C
Bluey body temps at surface 6.5C

Maybe a little warmer where Richard is.

[RoryBreaker]

Sounds balmy at those temps

At work the last few weeks, I have been driving round with the air conditioning on. Still cools off at night though to single digits.

[Richard.C]

I think probably similar temps here scott,though windchill factor from bass straight makes it feel half that,yesterday was nicesst day we have had in a long long time,sunny and pushing 17 degrees celcius,todays dropped back,over cast,rainy and wind has picked right up again

Ive been meaning to suss there temps,and to see what temps the wild easterns are at when they pop out of compost to stay cool

Rory to give u an idea,when im driving even during the day i have my climate control usually around 24,sometimes it still feels cold so i up it to 27 or 28 ,lol

Im still struggling to bugger this flu thing off since start of june

[Geezer]

Scott, Thanks for the info on body temp of the Blotchies. So that converts to 43.7°F for us yanks. That is colder than I expected. How many days will they be at that low of temps? The reason I ask is that I would like to see how they compare in brumation style to North American colubrid snakes (something I'm familiar with).

[Richard.C]

Can be those ground temps for 3 or 4 months,and generally its constantly wet to

My lot generally stop eating in april and can take as long as oct/ november to start eating again,usually september sometime thougg,if we get a decent spring,last couple of seasons thougg we just had extended winters

Australia isnt all desert and subtropical rain forests

[spandangle]

I find this very interesting. I have always wondered what other people experience with their blueys and brumation outside. It is also interesting noting the behaviour between the species.

Three of my shinglebacks are in an outside enclosure and this winter I have noticed that they refuse to use the hide box I gave them and instead, they just dig into the soil underneath some planks and one of those artificial hide rocks.

We live in the Perth hills and therefore it is a a bit colder than the rest of Perth metro. Our winters are more like that of Melbourne except with fewer frosts. Even in the cold damp conditions, my shinglebacks will still make an appearance on the odd days. Yesterday afternoon when I got home from work, I noticed two of them sitting on the rock in the open. When I checked on them after dark, they were back in their hidey holes. The last few days have been the warmest days in July. They gave up on their food in early May and by late May they spent a lot more time hiding.

I now have a trio of Centralians and I have kept them inside this winter. One of them is a juvenile (born in February) and the other two are adults. I have kept the youngen on a thermostat but the two adults I just adjusted the heat lamp timer (no heat at night). The adults brumated very quickly as soon as the outside temp started dropping. The inside of our house has only got down to about 15°C so far this winter. The adults are knocked out and I have not seen them come out of their box for about 3 to 4 weeks even though I still have the heat lamp on for 10 hours per day. So far, I have found that the Centralians seem to be much more eager to brumate than the singlebacks ever were.