I have been considering a group of Florida box turtles for an outdoor enclosure in my backyard, but I am wondering whether or not I will need to keep the turtles inside for part of the year or if I can just brumate them outside. I live in Central New York, so I am worried about if this is possible. If I were to do it, then I would likely brumate them in a similar way to how many Australian keepers brumate their blue tongues outside. They provide them with a wooden box insulated with insulation foam and a roof made out of corrugated plastic to help project a bit more heat into the box. The box is then filled substrate, such as aspen fiber and the animals are left in there all winter. I think that even for a Florida box turtle, this could be an ample brumating setup. I would obviously have to find a way to keep the box from completely icing over, but if I did this it may work. I would like to get more opinions on this first though, as I don’t want to end up harming my animals. So what are y’all’s opinions on this?
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Hi, not sure if you have seen Chris Leone’s winter setup for his FL box turtles, they are a lot like what you have in mind. He calls them cold frames. I think the answer to whether it will work depends on your specific zip code and what the conditions are like in there. But if you go with a cold frame/insulated box then yeh you should be able to do it.