What are the pros and cons to having a pyxie hibernate?
it is dangerous to do in captivity for unexperienced keeper, better not to do it at all.
Save one animal and it doesn't change the world, but it surely changes the world for that one animal!
You NEED to aestivate your frog if you want it to live past just a few years. These frogs spend 10 months a year aestivating in the wild, not letting them aestivate is completely unnatural.
Both have there pros and cons. I believe if you want to breed your frogs that the female requires it to produce the eggs. During hibernation there is a chance that your frog could die, I had two die this year during hibernation but I think that I let the soil dry out too much. But not letting your frog hibernate will not decrease its lifespan from my experience. My oldest male has hibernated maybe twice in 8 years and one of those times was for 5 months in my garage during summer in Myrtle beach sc(I forgot about him after moving) and he was just fine after letting him soak a while.
exactly! that is what i meant by it is dangerous and to be done only by experienced keepers who know what they're doing. there is no way to prove how aestivation would affect life expectancy, we gotta deal with a lot of variables here, such as genetics, environment, and many more.
Interesting that similar discussion is going on among snake keepers and majority agrees on similar approach, me included. When we have solid proof that it is in fact shorten life span and by how much then we can consider brumation/aestivation risk vs time he'd live without it we can make informative decision on to go for it or not.
meanwhile it is proven that in order to simulate breeding behavior certain animal species need to go through "winter time" and it is the only reason to do so given information we have.
Save one animal and it doesn't change the world, but it surely changes the world for that one animal!
You say that you don't think it's necessary, since your frog is 8 years old, yet you have aestivated it twice. 5 months is a pretty long aestivation for hobby standards. Plus, 8 years is not a very long life for a pyxie, maybe it would be for a pacman. I know of multiple 20-plus year old pyxies, that were aestivated. Too many people have their huge "healthy" pyxies randomly die when they're only a few years old and wonder why.
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