When Do Snakes Hibernate?

Video Transcript

"When do snakes hibernate? Well not all snakes hibernate, just the ones that are going to live in temperate areas that are going to get colder. Snakes are ectothermic so their internal body temperature is decided on by other sources be it the sun or a heated rock or whatever. So snakes that do hibernate are going to hibernate in the late Fall to early Winter months. Now the key to hibernation is that a snake has to have the correct indicators to tell it to hibernate so a snake that is not allowed to be out in the wild and slowly or gradually have the temperature start dropping on him and slowly and gradually having the amount of daylight available to him getting smaller he won't have the correct indications that it is time to hibernate. Because a snake has to prepare for hibernation. They have to eat a little bit more, they have to fatten up and they have to find a place that is going to be proper for them to hibernate in. Now if you are continuing to hibernate a snake in captivity you can do that by shortening lighting hours and by slowly bringing the temperature down to a month to two month period, make sure that you do offer the snake more food before doing this and always make sure that you have water available in the event that the snake does awaken from his hibernation in an intermittent period and need to rehydrate. That's very important."