Winter and Hibernation

[FrogFriend]

Hey everyone!

So, I have had my FBTs since about April of this year and in the time period I have slowly been re-vamping their home to make it more "homey". Now that we are starting to head in the fall and winter months, I was wondering if there was anything that I needed to do or not do for their hibernation time period. Will I see a decrease in their food consumption? Should I increase it for awhile? Will they look different? Right now they are all a very dark color and sitting in the water between the turtle dock and waterfall. Should I take out their waterfall or do anything different with their habitat? I am moving into unfamiliar waters and to be honest, I really didn't even think about hibernation until I read a post that someone else mentioned about it. I do not plan to breed my toads, although since April a lot of mating was going on (no eggs though). Does this also mean the barking will stop? I kind of like it and got used to hearing it. Anyone that has experience with the hibernation period, I would be happy to know what to expect.

Thanks in advance!

[MantisMan]

if u dont want them to breed, just dont change their care
if u want them to breed, start decreasing their daylight cycle (probably too late by now if u rely on a cold closet or something for winer temps) by half an hour every other week, an hour a month, until 12.5 hours
them put them in a small tank with soil or moss and put this in a dark, cold (55-60 degrees) area for 11 weeks
resume with a daylight hours at 13 and slowly increase that and water level to induce spawning

[FrogFriend]

Thanks! I am not really interested in breeding at this time. Like I said, I have only had them since April and I am still learning about them. Maybe another year I will think about breeding. Another question, if you know...it seems like they are staying a very dark brown color more often. There are times when there colors lighten- like when I do a big tank cleaning job or add another item to their home. They turn bright green and I hear my males barking and twirling and chirping and moving all around the tank, etc. but then a few days later they are all dark brown again and huddled together in the space between their turtle dock and the waterfall. I have checked the temp to see if maybe they are too cold but temp always looks in a good range. Is this part of hibernation, are they not happy? I know that FBTs can be different colors based on sub-species and with mine, I can definitely see that. I have one that is nearly always lime green, one that is darker green with flecks of rust color in his back hind quarters and one that bounces between bright lime green and dark brown and one that lately always seems to be dark brown, rarely ever turning green. That one is the favorite female between my two males and most of the time looks quite wide and flubby. I read that it's because the boys like her, but she's also the quickest hunter too. I usually do 2 crickets p/toad ever 2-3 days.

[Marco Caccianiga]

Mine had babies three times without any hibernation... so be prepared, it can happen!
Concerning the color.. this one of the most interesting (and hard to understand) question. Regardless of the original color, they all can become almost black. MIne are bright green, one is lime green and two brown ("golden"): all of them sometimes become black, seem scared of everything.. and after few days, everything is ok again. I checked temperature, light, humidity, shedding time.. Nothing seemed to matter. I had to move them to a small box for few weeks and I expected them to turn black and scared and they kept their brightest colors. Once again, after a period of bad mood and black color.. I found eggs! So I thought it was like a small "hibernation".. but next year they laid eggs during their bright and happy moment. One of them (the lime green one, a male) is particularly subject to mood changes (I like him, is somewhat psychotic but is also smart and funny). What can I say? there something of personality, and probably something in the environment I don't see.. That's why I like them!