Winter is knoking at the door and i have a question

[crankypunk]

Hi everyone

Well i live in Montreal, Canada and the cold is starting to hit at night. I use an UTH and i see that at night the temp is much lower then what it use to be in summer. Now what do you guys do in winter for heating ? this is my 1st winter with my gecko.
For the past 2 days what i did was add a lamp on top to give heat ( infra red lamp ) i put its in the middle so it wont give out 2 much heat over the UTH and temps was hoter then what i had without it .. now im wondering if its not 2 much heat to have UTH + lamp ... what are you opinions on this subject.
Thank you

[hooter]

If you have more than a couple herps you should look into heating the room rather then each cage. I use a small ceramic heater to heat my room when it drops to low.

[Matt.B]

Naturally the leos will go into brumation. You might want to let them empty there stomachs for the next two weeks and keep the UTH on by itself and let the "hibernate" they dont eat move or crap the whole time so its really easy.
Matt

[Siretsap]

Usually you do not empty your gecko's stomach like a snake's. Your gecko will still feed during winter. Just eat less. And he does move around. You are not talking about a cornsnake here. And how low does your room temp go at night? Ours stays betwen 17 and 23 all the time. So we only use the uth and unplug it in winter to do a cooldown, but they still eat and fertility ratio is quite good.

I also live in Montreal by the way, and it's true we had 3 to 4 cold nights, even one went to 0 in dorval area.

[Repti]

I also live in Montreal and my leos don't stop eating during winter, they eat juste a little bit less than normal.

Yep, it's getting colder and colder out here !! Il fait frette en *%*/&% :D:D:D

Repti

[Dan and Kandyce]

Well I live in Windsor Ontario and it's still pretty nice here so ha. just jokeing

[DragnDrop]

Unless you know exactly how to brumate the leos, don't even try. If you don't do it right, you could end up with sick/dead leos. I've heard and read too often about casualties because the owner didn't do it properly. Leos can take 'room temperature' down to 65F / 18C at night without problem. If your leos are in a heated part of the house, don't worry too much. It's not necessary to cool them down/brumate them over winter, they will still breed when they're ready. I've never cooled my leos in over 10 years, and have lots of eggs and healthy babies every year. Leave the UTH or other heat source on during the day, let the enclosure cool to room temperature over night (about 12 hours worth of cool time), and they'll be okay.

[crankypunk]

Thanks for the posts :)

Looks like i wont need the extra lamp because the UTH isint droping under 65 F and also we heat that part of the house in winter but not at the moment not cold enough to use heaters ... lol

Im from the east part of Montreal BTW for you MTL dudes :D

[Matt.B]

I brumate my geckos, mostly to get a break from feeding and cleaning them lol. Oh and yes it is very important to empty a geckos stomach before brumation because without heat leos cant digest and if there is food in there stomach when there cooled down then it will rot and make them either sick or dead.
Matt