Brumation question

Hey if anyone has any insight I would appreciate. So I’m a first time northern blue tongue skink owner. He’s roughly a year old.
He starting brumating the end of last November and has been asleep since. Only times been awake was a vet check up to see if he was healthy to brumate and a couple of times to weigh him. He started at 360g beginning of December and now 346g as last week.
My question is do I do anything to encourage waking up? I read where they usually brumate 6-12 weeks. Do I slowly introduce heat? Or wait? I really don’t know. Appreciate any help!

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I am paging @logar on this. Hopefully he will see this post. :blush:

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You will need to both warm the room up and also create a more spring like light cycle. Slowly, bring the room temp up don’t do it all at once. Set a light on a timer so that it’s 14 hours a day. That should be all you need.

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Ok thanks. I assume I shouldnt supply the normal high temperature right away? Right now I left the basking light on for 4 hours which is reaching the upper 80s. Do I gradually raise it higher? Or wait until he actually wakes up and starts basking?

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I also have an led on all day now.

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I would leave the basking lamp on during daylight hours. Your whole goal here is fake spring so more light and warmer temps.

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@ballornothing got pretty much everything. I may or may not have dropped my phone in a pool this somewhat breaking my phone. I am usually never this far behind on posts :rofl:

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Ooooh not good Logan! I was wondering why I haven’t gotten any “likes” from you lately!!!:thinking::blush:

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@logar that’s more like it!!! :+1::clap::joy:

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Alright thanks guys! Hopefully this will trigger him to wake up. I just don’t feel comfortable him to brumate too long since he’s not fully grown. Also when should I be trying to reach higher temps in the 90s?

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I for some reason thought this thread was about hognoses :man_facepalming:. So I do have a bit to add. Increase the basking spot gradually to 105-110 over the next week or two. I would also do a substrate change and get the humidity up to 60%. Along with that once the lights to a 12/12 or 14-10 hour light cycle. I personally have just keep it at 12/12 year round but I am thinking about trying a more natural lighting style. If you don’t already have a CHE or a DHP I would get one. A lot of times, brumation is caused by shorter days and/or cooler temperatures so if the night is too cold then it will trigger it. I don’t know if you meant to brumate or not but just thought I would throw that in

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Nah I never had a reptile brumate on me. Only ever kept gecko species before so he just did on his own. I’ll supply some night heat aswell.

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Just chilling after changing some substrate. Hopefully gets the idea it’s warm now haha.

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Hey last question. I’m sure there’s no exact answer but is there a rough estimate of when they usually start waking up when you stimulate spring? I just want to make sure he’s going to actually wake up and not brumate with heat on and lose weight quicker. I saw where they tend to start waking up in February?

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they will usually start waking up whenever the lights are on for longer periods of time and higher temps

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Has been roughly a week and still no signs of basking or any other activity. Should I be concerned or just let him wake up on his own?