Terrarium temp

[elly]

80 in the day and 70 at night might be okay. The exposure to cold might have triggered his hibernation. Generally, there's no reason to hibernate most amphibians unless you want to breed them. Hibernation can be risky, I've heard.

It is kind of suspicious that the warmed up tank hasn't led to more movement. I'd be a little concerned about your toad's health. But it could be completely innocent also, maybe hibernation drives are really that strong?

[red green hawk]

I appreciate your response. He did wake the other day and went after a mealworm I put in there. This is the 4th winter I've had him and he's "hibernated" each winter. It consisted of him digging down the the substrate for a few weeks. Every winter I get concerned but he always comes back. This summer as I was preparing his compacted terrarium moss I left it outside for a couple days. We've been finding beetles in the terrarium almost daily. My suspicion is he's been snacking on these beetles periodically. My only concern is with how early he has shut himself down this year. I'll just continue to use the heat lamp. In prior years he's come around in January/February.

[elly]

I'm so glad this isn't anything out of the ordinary. Maybe you'll want to cool it off to the usual temperature now and warm it up again early if he went down early? He sounds like he's in good hands.

[Frowg]

Sounds like you know what your doing. I always use a heat bulb with my amphibians because it's easy to control the heat without using heat from ambient light. As for the possible early hibernation, it is perfectly normal for amphibians to start early or late. If a cool front lowered it's normal ambient temperature it would usually cause a toad to become sluggish.