dee4, all my diamonds are kept outside all year round. I stop feeding them in late April/early May and start feeding again in Oct/Nov. Diamonds dont hibernate in the true sense of the word. Where i live the winter temps can drop to 9 degrees but all my diamonds will continue to emerge every day to bask as long as the sun shines. I do believe it is healthier for them and have found that diamonds prefer being cool over winter. In fact if given a choice over a heated hiding box or a cold box during winter, all my diamonds choose the cold box. I have also kept diamonds indoors over winter and have found that they dont need their temps dropped as low as outdoors. If you drop the temps to 24 during the day and 15 at night they will get the hint that its winter. When kept indoors i bring them out of winter temps around September.
I do believe that you should still cool them down for winter even if you arent breeding as long as they're not juveniles. I do keep juveniles at summer temps over winter and continue to feed them until about 2-3 years old. I dont recommend this for adults as i think it could lead to Diamond Syndrome. My diamonds start mating in August and will continue through September and October. I have 8 diamonds. 2 males,6 females.Up until this year, they were all kept together in a large avairy 6m long, 2m high, 1.7m wide and bred readily.
